Indescribable Value of the Children of God

This is the most difficult post I've had to write so far. I'm sure it won't be the last difficult blog post that I put up, but it is hard to put down in words. Chris Tomlin wrote an incredible worship song called Indescribable as a paradoxical description of God. He sings about the power of God and how this God is past amazing to an area that you couldn't even describe. It's a nice song that goes on to describe some of the things our God has done, however it's a song that you can't really sing in honesty until you get to the end of your knowledge of God.

 

On Friday night I was at the youth group at my church and the worship was incredible! I don't know if it's because I've stopped being in charge of the running of the night, so I focused only on God and not on how the night was going. All I know is that I felt the love of God in a way that surpassed emotion, logic and even circumstance. I found myself on my knees on the floor crying like an undeserving pearl. There was another leader that felt that same love of God enter the room that night, and afterwards when we tried to explain it to each other we were at a complete loss for words, all we knew is that we wanted to get back to that presence of God where nothing else on earth mattered. Where I felt complete, loved, clean, valued and strong. It was an experience that I know will stick with me for years to come. When I consider it, I know that this is worth any amount of sacrifice. This doesn't mean that I've overcome all my shortfalls, and I'm now invincible. Far from it, but it definitely was a state of spirit that I want to pursue with more and more of my life, even if I never get there again until my death.

Matthew 13:45-46 is where the kingdom of heaven is compared to a merchant seeking beautiful pearls and he finds one of great price and sells everything that he has to buy it. I felt like that pearl on Friday night. Today is Monday morning, where I could feel far from that feeling, however God reminded me of my value with that story. I now will not only choose to live as a pearl of great price for Christ, but striving to share this truth with people around me in a world full of people who seem to feel like they aren't even worth a "Good morning" from those that they see as more important than them at work, in their social circles or at school even. It must be a sad feeling for God to give so much value to someone, so much that He paid whatever He could to show them He loves them, and then seeing them reject His price tag on their life, and ascribe their own worthless evaluation.

From the child on the street, to the Queen, herself, God wants to love us with an intensity that is quite literally indescribable.

I Can Imagine

Ok, firstly I strongly suggest you read the picture I put here. It's from the book mentioned below.

When I was little, I used to really enjoy drawing. I would even take pictures from disney cartoons in magazines and draw them with chalk on a board for weeks at a time. It was my own world and my imagination having a field day in it's own form of art. I would get into my own little creations. Do you remember when you were little, and you used to draw pictures? You wouldn't just draw the pictures, though. You would be talking to them, and interacting with them, making them come alive in your imagination as you drew.

As I grew older, people started telling me what good art was, and what bad art was. Unfortunately my pictures never ever ever ever made the good art category (not sure I have enough 'evers' memorized there). I even tried taking the subject in grade 8 and grade 9. I remember spending hours on a drawing of an elephant using 'stippling', and the teacher gave me 60%, and then I spent ten minutes drawing an orange, and got the exact same grade. My imagination was killed. It had been weighed through comparisons with others, and fallen short. I don't think I've drawn anything other than doodles since grade 9. This was something I really enjoyed doing, something that gave my imagination an outlet that I enjoyed, but because I was told it wasn't something that other people enjoyed, I gave it up. What other aspects of my imagination have been killed like this??!

Reading a fascinating (and CRAZY) book* lately has taught me something really interesting. Imagination is so important! It's something everyone does when they're little, but stops doing at some stage in life. I remember when I used to believe that my stuffed animal toys were alive, and I could even hear them breathing. Then I was taught that the animal was made out of cotton and nylon. It was no longer able to breathe. Slowly, but surely, our imaginations are laid down in the trunk with all our old toys, and all we're left with is logic and cynicism**.

I believe being a child of God requires a lot of imagination. It's something He created, and something He longs to use. I'm not just talking about being in the creative stream of ministry, I'm talking about serving God. Right now I can imagine the streets of Sao Paulo where the kids have stopped running away from their parents to form gangs and sell drugs. I can imagine the country of Brazil being a place where the poverty isn't horded by the rich. I can imagine being a role model and even an inovator of many programs to bring love to the street kids of Sao Paulo. But what would I have been able to imagine if my mind hadn't been streamlined into our "grown up" way of life?

I can imagine a group of people loving God and pursuing Him with the imagination that He equipped them with. I can imagine Him backing up their imaginitive ideas with practical applications, and I can imagine a world where the love of God becomes tangible to the people of the world through His own Body of believers because they dared to live with a different mindset.

*

** If I were to ask you what state of being was most detrimental to the longevity of humans, most of us would venture a guess at stress or anger. However, I heard a specialist on the radio say that cynicism takes off more years of our lives than anything else. Fascinating. Makes you think we were made to live a life as people who forgive others shortfalls.

Unfinished Ribbon

I remember a few years ago listening to a pastor tell a story about a man who he was walking a journey with. This man wasn't a Christian, but was in a friendship with the pastor. The pastor ended the story there, saying that some stories just don't have that bow tied around them to wrap the present up as finished. That imagery has always stuck with me, I think because I feel like it's the story of my life.

I am an unfinished process. I have many hang ups and short falls, especially when it comes to my walk with Christ. I am not where I think I should be to be doing and attempting to pursue the things that I am doing and attempting to pursue. But I don't believe that this should stop my pursuit of all that God has for me.

This morning I looked at a few of the lives of the disciples, and I really got encouraged by them. It all started with this verse in Matthew 13, where the disciples ask Jesus to explain His parables. Right away I loved that. They were with Him all the time in the flesh, and heard all the things that we've heard from Him and way more. Their minds must have been in there with His, and yet there was so much that they still didn't understand, and so far for them still to travel. Then, of course there was Peter, who denied Jesus three times. Thomas, the famous doubting Thomas, who refused to believe that Jesus had done what He had repeatedly told them He would do until he had seen it himself. Judas flat out betrayed Jesus, even though he had walked with the Man for so many years. Even before all this, there was John the Baptist, who had his doubts in Jesus while he was in prison, too. I was thinking about all of these guys, and their shortfalls and failures and hiccups, and I realized something that really really encouraged me, and I hope it can encourage you, too. They all were walking with Jesus, and they were still far from perfect. But the only person who escaped from Jesus' hands, the only one who slipped out of the protection and forgiveness and purpose of Christ, was the one guy who, himself, gave up. It was never Jesus who walked away from them, or turned them away or refused to go any further with such weak, failure-filled people.

Isaiah 24:16 says, "For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again."

The verse doesn't call those that don't fall righteous. It says that the righteous are those that rise again. And again. And again. I can do that. I can be righteous. I am most definitely a work in progress, but by the Word of God, I will not give up, or count myself out or declare a state of unrighteousness. I will rise again, and I will chase after the dream God has put in my heart, and I will pursue righteousness as a righteous man.

Because I want Jesus to present me to God one day as a perfect gift with a finished ribbon.