The Game and Good News

I was a freshman in college the first time I remember playing the game. I don't think I had played it again till the summer between my sophomore and junior years, and then I was facilitating it.

"Game" isn't exactly the right term for it, either, although that's how we phrased it. It has different names -- cross the river, cross the line, cross the log (okay, so the last was in a rather rustic setting).

It's a great evangelism tool, and I keep thinking about it this semester. However, it really wouldn't work in every setting. I've only seen it used with people college- and middle/highschool-aged, and only in contexts where there is a chance for real community to grow in safety.

There's an invisible line, river, log, whatever...

Cross the line if --

If your favorite color is red. Blue. Green.

If you like wearing jeans.

If you like waffle cones.

If your family has a dog.

If you have younger siblings.

If you have older siblings.

If you fight with your best friend.

If you have friends who do drugs.

If you have friends who have been pregnant.

If you knew someone who got killed.

If you know people who cut.

If you've talked to someone who was suicidal.

If you've ever been abused. Thought you were worthless. Thought about suicide.

The questions don't have to go exactly that way, but the flow tends to be pretty similar. At first it's a goofy-getting-to-know people game, then the atmosphere changes.

It's always been amazing to me to see who ends up where. To see what happens afterwards. It's not an easy game to participate in, or facilitate, one that you pray the whole time that you won't do anything stupid, that breaking will be healing too.

But it's the level I see real chances for evangelism happening on, too. A lot of deep connections are made on the basis of brokenness.

It keeps happening.

Stories get told, and other stories come.

It's been a very emotional week, says a friend after chapel on Wednesday.

Amen.

And the emotions run wild -- how do you lose a human? and we're all pulled into knowing how desperately small and fragile we are, how very easily the community we live in gets broken -- and they run deep -- what connects to one of us, seems to connect to all, pulls through all of us -- and they run through years of difference experiences, cutting across all our lives -- and they connect us to each other.

And everything is broken.

But there is good news.

Thou Hast Taught Me to Say

It is well with my soul.

When helicopters fly over the river, and I hope that they find something, because I want to know, and I hope that they don't, because I can't think of any way for that to be good.

It is well with my soul.

When I think of how I'm not seeing who I should be seeing. The sidewalk seems emptier. The stacks at the library are missing a person. Shifts in the dining hall aren't covered. A mailbox is unchecked.

It is well with my soul.

When I look back at the papers I graded last semester, wondering if I missed something. We all wonder, questioning, all the what-ifs. When I realize that I remember the shoes they think he's wearing, yeah, because I could see them on the periphery of my vision when I sat in front of him in class.

It is well with my soul.

When my fingers run a name through google, all anxious irritation, and I'm hoping for new news, hoping that no news is good news, and my brain is all tangled and I don't know what I want.

It is well with my soul.

When I get out of a good class and then it hits me all over again, the sudden sick feeling. Waking up in the middle of the night and remembering.

It is well with my soul.

And it is well with my soul when I sit with other students and we're thrown together hard and suddenly by this thing we can't explain or understand, and we still worship and we pray and cry and hope and fear. And when we end with singing the hymn that began running through my head as we prayed, all our confused questions melting down into trust in God.

And it is well with my soul when I realize that this is what lost really means, what it feels like when someone is lost, and I suddenly know that the word is so much worse than I ever knew before. That this is what we were, what I was, before Christ found me, only so much worse. And it's harder to take being found for granted.

Pieces come together for me, although not yet answers. Stephen Altrogge's recent post on prayer haunts me as I pray and think about having to keep praying for who knows how long, with nothing to run on but trust in God.

He writes,

Over time our prayers tend to decrease in intensity. Jesus tells us that as time passes, our prayers should actually increase in intensity. The longer that God delays, the harder we should pray. We shouldn’t automatically assume that a delayed answer means no answer at all.

but read the whole post.

Caedmon's Call's lyrics:

Whatcha been doin today?
Cuz I've been thinkin about you.
Heard some news that set my mind to wondering,
And I need to hear your voice.
Are you out on the plains,
Burning your feet on the ground?
Out where noone even knows your name,
Seventy miles out of town.

We miss you, do you miss us?
What is the language with which these words I can trust?
I thank my God every time
I remember you.

Whatcha been thinkin about?
Cuz I've been thinkin about life,
And how nothing can escape the governing of God.
Still somehow that just doesn't comfort me tonight.
I still need to hear your voice.

Now I hear you, do you hear me?
What medium is there that I can use to make you see
That I thank my God every time
I remember you.

Bending down to help a flower, dry with poverty.
Helping it to understand its inheritance.
I remember life so bright,
Every time I close my eyes,
I see you.

Brother you made it,
Brother you made it,
Brother you made it.

And I thank my God every time,
And I thank my God every time,
I remember you.

Pray that we find him, and find him safe and soon.

Pray that God find His people.

Pray that we find each other where we need to be found.

Pray that we are all able to say, taught to say, It is well with my soul.

Dag

Dagorhir has helped me to mature.

I'm serious.

First of all, it's given me more context than I would have had otherwise for the whole concept of spiritual warfare and triumphing and all those other semi-archaic notions that are tangled up in real, face to face fighting. Granted, we go out and hit each other with foam and pvc pipe and fiberglass held together with ductape and dap, but it's taught me a lot more than I knew before.

I've learned about working with people on your team: how to communicate, how to delegate, how to obey, how to strategize, and how to relax and just jump in without much of a plan.

I've learned about trusting people, about reading people, about getting to know them. It's pretty difficult to hide your character on the battlefield, because you get beaten and you get hot and cold and irritated and bashed in the head and sometimes no one asks how you are. It tends to bring out the worst in people. And it also brings out the best, when people who are really dissimilar work together and win a battle, pull off something they'd never done before, say something really stupid and really hilarious, and there is a shining moment of totally unexpected fellowship. It's easier to trust people who you've fought with.

It's easier to serve with them, too. I learned that the first spring on a missions trip. We were used to working together, used to depending on each other.

Dag's taught me about leadership, about how you can simultaneously hate something with your whole self, until you scream when people mention the word, and also love it so desperately that you lose all kinds of other opportunities to try to hold it together. How you get tied down by responsibilities and how those responsibilities grow and fill all the space available in your life and spill over into unavailable space, but they're ties that make you who you are, ones that are for your good. I stand in the tension-filled position now of watching a new generation of Dag'ers come in, and building relationships with them -- the old leaders did that for me, and those are still friends I run to -- and giving them space to find their own way.

And that's part of why I love Dag.

Hebrews 10 and Psalm 40

Today's thoughts are about Hebrews 10:5-10.

I want to laugh with relief about these verses. Maybe I get really excited about them partly just because I keep listening to Max McLean reading Hebrews, and his voice gets excited on them.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me;

in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

(Hebrews 10:5-10 ESV)

But I think there's more to it. The quote in the middle of that chunk is from Psalm 40:6-8, which always, always, makes me want to cringe when I'm singing it. Especially the two verses after those.

Because I can tell you something about myself. I do not always delight to do God's will. I do not always tell the gospel, or speak of God's faithfulness and salvation. I do hide the deliverance in my heart instead of boldly proclaiming it, and conceal God's steadfast love and faithfulness. I commit sins of omission and commission, not doing what I should and not saying what I should and instead doing and saying what I most definitely should not.

And so... so... I am glad that it is Christ who can boldly and joyfully and rightfully shout out those words in a triumphant song, and that the writer of Hebrews makes that connection. I'm glad that it was His obedience that secures my salvation, so that God's steadfast love and faithfulness are dumped out on me in bucketloads.

Initial Thoughts and 1 Cor 1:10-17

So here is my idea as I'm embarked on this new year, the overarching idea of what I want to be studying in the Bible and in other resources: What is being a woman supposed to look like? And, okay, not just generally, but for me specifically, and for me specifically now. How do I glorify God in being a woman?

I'm reading through 1 Corinthians, not so much because it's related (though it may be) as because I realized that I haven't read through those books in a while and there is a lot in them.

Yeah. Right now it's all rather disconnected, but that's the general plan -- along, hopefully, with continued intentional familiarization -- okay, memory -- of Hebrews. And maybe some other resources that I find. In the words of Buddy, "I've got some ideas."

I'm such an honors-student-type-A person, looking at this and thinking, Man, that just doesn't seem intense enough.

Might be that I'd actually learn in my Daniel class... and my Evangelism class...

I'm excited to see where this goes.

Here were the verses I really liked today in 1 Cor:

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1:10)

Can't you just see everyone glaring at "Chloe's people"? Thanks a lot for telling Paul that we were quarreling!

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1:17)

I get hung up on liking eloquent wisdom.

But I want Christ's cross to be powerful more than I want to sound smart.

Why I Love Jars of Clay

Jars of Clay is my favorite band.

So I was excited when Stephen Altrogge posted on The Blazing Center (link here) that Amazon had their latest album The Shelter as a $5 download this month.

I love Jars of Clay because their music style seems to change, within comfortable boundaries, from album to album. Which means that my brain doesn't get really, really tired of hearing them after a while.

I love Jars of Clay because they tell the truth.

I wasted a rescue

Abandoned the mission

I failed by my own hands
And watched it all go wrong

You said you could save me
That I couldn't save myself
You said that you loved me
No matter what I've done

When the light is gone
And life is just a dare we take
Still the fight goes on
To give my heart away

And it's out of my hands
It was from the start
In light of what you've done for me
In light of what you've done for me

You lifted my head

Set me apart

In light of what you've done for me

This is what you've done for me.

[Out of My Hands]

I know who I am

Once I was nameless, alone and you found me

[Run in the Night (Psalm 27)]

In the shelter of each other

We will live

[Shelter]

They pray.

Send me to the edge of the earth

Show me what a life is worth

[Call My Name]

Talk to me, 'cause I've been talking to myself

Help me get these thoughts out of my own head

I don't believe, most days I don't believe

Mercy is true, it's hard to live with the things that I do

So God, bruise the heels we've dug in the ground

That we might move closer to love

Pull out the roots that we've dug in so deep

Finish what you started

Help us to believe

Keep our eyes wide open

Love is kind and love is daring

[Eyes Wide Open]

I love Jars of Clay because they don't leave it at words, but that they constantly challenge Christians to put their words and their faith into action. They've done it as a band through Blood:Water Mission (here's a link).

Go into the world

Showing how much

He loves you

Walk in the world

In merciful ways

He loves you

He loves you

Emmanuel on earth

[Benediction]

If our days could be filled with small rebellions

Senseless brutal acts of kindness from us all

If we stand between the fear and firm foundation

Push against the current and the fall

[Small Rebellions]

I love Jars of Clay because they open up God's graces in glorious, explosive ways. Because they delve into the depths of human brokenness, both dramatic and mundane, and point to God as the answer.

I love Jars of Clay because they leave me hungry for God and glad to have a place in His creation, rejoicing in being an image-bearer.