The More of Worship

My worship journey peaked at an unusual place called Splash Country. It is a Dolly Parton entertainment park where the entire place, huge place, is water-related activities. Thus the name, Splash Country. I went there with my then-seven-year-old daughter Salem.

Normally at a place like this, there are the watchers and the doers. But today, everyone came to play, regardless of size or shape, pasty white or bottle bronzed, cool bathing suit or out-dated reruns, we all played in the water, played in the fountains, down the slides, floated down the lazy river, and huddled under the Giant bucket, which was my personal favorite.

I realized that I had joined them in the child-like excitement. But more importantly I realized I was good with me. I came to play with my daughter. And life was very good.

Thanks, Lord.

But then we came to the wave pool.

Now, I know that we are all made in the image of God. I am so good with that. But standing around, waiting for “something,” with a bunch of wet, half-naked young and old people standing too, too close was not so good.

I mean really…there were a lot of hairy men. Really hairy. Really awkward. It is was cramped and everyone is trying not to touch anyone…whew. Get the picture?

Then from over the speaker you hear this beep— beep— beep. Everyone chattered in an odd sense of anticipation and the waves begin. The water slowly rippled but then grew in momentum. It moved up and down creating waves. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down, very predictable. Up and down, very heartless. Up and down, even the kids grew bored. Up and down. Then the water went flat.

No waves. No laughter. No expectation. What do you have left? Everyone standing around cramped, wet and half-naked, trying not to touch each other —waiting.

So I take all this in and think maybe, just maybe it was a bad run at the wave pool. We hang around to see if next time is better, as if next time it would be different. It wasn’t. Not that time or the next four times. Only the bodies changed out.

 They weren’t changed, they just changed out, meandered off in hopes of a little excitement.

 As I stood on the wave pool edge (you could hardly call the sloped concrete a “shore”), I watched the waves go up and down in a powerless, passionless rhythm and everyone jumping on cue with feigned excitement.

Then the Lord said, This is like worship.

I kept watching. “How so?” I asked.

 It is empty.

“Why doesn’t this work, Lord? It seems like a good idea. The fun of the ocean without salt, without the sand.”

Because there is no awe.

Let’s break this down. Just like a wave pool where you can jump in waves with no ocean, you can worship without a GOD to worship. When worship is not fueled by the Spirit of God, driven by desire for God, in awe of God, then it is boring and predictable and empty like the wave pool. It may be fun for a few minutes, then you wander off, ready to do something else. You are not changed by it. You just change activities.

Let’s talk about the ocean. It is always different. You can’t help but feel the huge-ness, it is ever changing, and oh the power. I could go on and on!. The smell, the feel, the taste. It never gets old, you never know what you will get when you go. Every time is different. Much like the presence of the Lord, you experience it, all of it, the feel, the taste, the smell. There is a power and source that comes in waves. But you can’t control these waves. You don’t even know when or how they will come. Only that they will come.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 46

Let’s Get Real Here:

When you think of worship – really – are you standing in a wave pool or at the ocean? If you’re in the wave pool, ask the Lord to give you awe.  If you’re at the ocean, ask Him what He has for the two of you there.

Who Is He Anyway?

So who is this God who asks us not for something but everything?

He is the God who calls things that are not, as though they were. (Romans 4:17)

He is the Lord who sings over us. (Zephaniah 3:17)

He is the Lord your God who is gracious and compassionate slow to anger and abounding in love. (Exodus 34:6-7)

He is the Spirit who brings beauty from ashes. (Isaiah 61:3)

He is One who holds all things together and by whom all things are made. (Colosians 1:15-17)

He is the God who will repay all the years that the locusts have eaten. (Joel 2:25)

He is the God who gives you His joy so that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11)

He is the God who boasts that “I will satisfy you fully.” (Joel 2:19)

What do you do when the God of the universe says He will satisfy you fully?

You have a couple of options. You can walk away. Or stand there in shock. Or you can drink Him in. You can bank on it. Not out of disrespect. Out of complete trust that if He said it, He means it. Some friends of mine and I have adopted a saying, “I’ve been peithoed,” meaning, I have been persuaded, overcome with evidence, blown away by the truth. Are you willing to be peithoed?

What exactly does peitho mean? The New Thayers Greek-English Lexicon says concerning this word peitho:

persuasion; to induce one by words to believe; to cause belief in a thing (which one sets forth), win one’s favor; to persuade unto; i.e. move or induce someone by persuasion to do something; to suffer one’s self to be persuaded; to be induced to believe; to trust.

God peithoes us every day. He wants to get our attention. He wants us to know Him.

Why? Because all along God has been after relationship, relationship, relationship.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 45

Let’s Get Real Here:

Are you convinced – peithoed – of what God says about Himself? About you?  If not, are you willing to let Him persuade you?

Start Your Bulldozer

Are you looking for three easy steps to freedom? Sorry. I can’t do that. But I can share with you a few tools, a few chisels, God has used in setting me free.

• Worship

If freedom comes where His Spirit is, then ask for His Spirit to come. One way to ask His Spirit to come is through worship—whether that time is spent in silence, driving down the road, or singing. One of my favorite ways to worship is to read scripture and then say it back or sing it back to the Lord. Worship is an attitude of the heart.

• The Word

The Bible is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword. (Hebrews 4:12.) When I feel weak, sad, mad, just yuk, I know that I am starving to death for His truth. I feed on the Word of God. I have learned to expect God to listen to me and to answer me. He has far more to say than we have ever dared to believe. He uses the Scripture in mighty ways. But we must come expecting. Hebrews 10:19-23 challenges us to approach God with confidence and with full assurance because He is faithful to hear us. You cannot live a God life without God’s word.

• Journaling

As we write our story we see His story unfolding. As we write out our words, He reveals His Word in the middle of it. Journaling is a history of all God is doing in our lives. You should see the progress that has been made in my list of “hopeless situations.” In every one of them you can see God’s hand moving. I am so thankful that I wrote them out and then rewrote them with a blessing.  In every situation, God is ever working. For His glory and my good.

Don’t be lazy. And don’t quit. Ask the Lord to show you how to worship Him in a deeper way. Ask the Lord to make you hungry for the Word. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you in a way that you can understand. You should see how many journal entries I have where God has spoken to me through nature. He took something simple that I love and used it to explan things about Himself, or me, or my circumstances.  He is very creative.

The Stories of Three Wells

I want to tell you three short stories about women. Like Snow White, they were all by wells. They were all approached by a man. And all were asked to do something.

Pushed Away

…Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.
Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.
Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.
When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
“And where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”
(From Exodus 2)

When you read this story it is easy to miss small details. These women are about their fathers’s business but are pushed aside. Other shepherds come and drive them away from their work because they are women. But the Bible says that Moses got up and came to their rescue and he watered their flock.

Not only did he save them, he served them.

When Papa hears about this story what does he say? Why did you leave him? He sends them back. Go back to where you have been rejected and pushed aside. Go back and see this man who saves you and serves you.

Called Away

 
Abraham had instructed his chief servant, Elihezar, to go to his home country and find a wife for his son Isaac.

The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again…

“When I came to the spring today, I said, ‘O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you will, please grant suc-cess to the journey on which I have come. See, I am standing beside this spring; if a maiden comes out to draw water and I say to her, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar,” and if she says to me, “Drink, and I’ll draw water for your camels too,” let her be the one the Lord has chosen for my master’s son.’
“Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder…
Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.”
When they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master…”
But her brother and her mother replied, “Let the girl remain with us ten days or so; then you* may go.”
Then they said, “Let’s call the girl and ask her about it.” So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?”
“I will go,” she said.
(From Genesis 24)

In this story, Rebekah is just living her life. She is prepared to do the work asked of her and she is contented. So when the invitation comes from the stranger it is no small thing. It will cost her all she knows. She is being offered wealth, marriage, new land, new people, but only if she is willing. She has to decide which is greater: my plan or God’s plan.

Swept Away

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (From John 4)

I so relate to this woman at the well. She is rejected, alone, ashamed, guilty. And here comes a Jew of all people asking her for a drink. But she still has plenty of mouth left, and asks Him why He associates with her? Ever wonder why God associates with us?

But then comes the offer. If you knew, Jesus said. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you.” She wasn’t worthy. But Jesus still offered her living water.

All of these women had their lives radically interrupted. They had encounters with someone who was a for-eigner, a stranger, totally unheard of. And all of these women were asked to “give” something. Go back and get him. Give him something to eat. Give me water. Give me a drink.

Their future hinged on their actions. There may have been a promise of the future, but it did not begin without a very great risk right now. Each of them stood at a crossroad. Were they willing to go the distance?

Do you see there is no box here? These encounters radically changed each woman’s world, every future action and ultimately their future.

You can’t get to glory without a little risk. God wants to take us deeper, but it will cost us something. It will require us to go back to hard places, outside our comfort zones, and away from our sin. But “if you knew” who was asking, the process is so much easier.

Excerpt from Unhindered, Chapter 43

Let’s Get Real Here:

Ask yourself a few important questions.

Which woman at the well am I right now?

Do I need a defender? A lover? A redeemer?

What action is being asked of me?

What is the risk of this decision?

What is the cost if I say yes?

Am I willing to have my life radically changed?

Zim Prayer: June 7 – June 11

Here’s what’s going on with the Zim team this week:

Monday, June 7

Sonoia Primary School

Tara speaks

“You are Special” skit

Fun songs

Chengatenai (Nursing Home)

Team sings and visits

Laura and Randy share testimonies

Good Shepherd Orphanage

Team share devotionals with the kids –

Alex and Spencer – younger boys 5-14

Randy and Tyler – older boys 15-20

Anna and Tara – girls 4-10

Jana, Beth, and Salem – girls 11-15

Lara and Laura – girls 16-23

Wednesday, June 9

Team leaves early for the Harare market

Thursday, June 10

Team flys out towards Knoxville, 12:30 PM (Zim time)

Friday, June 11

Team arrives home at 6:38 PM (Knox time)

Longings Fulfilled

So what is the opposite of “her desire will be for her husband”?

Her desire will be for and BE MET in her God. Do you see how much more this resembles the garden? Her longing is so deep only her Lover, the Lord can fill it. When she is fully defined and satisfied in Him, when she embraces all she is in Him, then and only then is she free to release her womanhood, her True God Expression of a Woman in a relationship with a man. Her glory is restored. Or should I say, God’s Glory in her is released.

Desire. This is how Jesus feels about me and about you. This intense longing. Talk about glory.

When you understand that Jesus loves us this intently, this relentlessly, then you begin to see why marriage is so important. There is nothing more powerful than when two people released in the Spirit of God come together in marriage. Talk about fireworks!

Why? Because when a man and a woman know who they are in Jesus, faults and all, they come together in God’s strength, for His glory, out of His overflow—it is truly breath-taking. It has little to do with the couple, it has everything to do with the picture. A lovestruck bridegroom, an eager and willing bride.

And to think His desire is for me… this kind of desire is for me, for you…

Glorious.

But what if you are not married?

Then all the more —to discover who we are as women, rather than thinking we will only be complete with a man. I know so many women who live in this kind of “lacking” state because there either 1) don’t have a man, or 2) they don’t have a man who meets their needs.

You have a man. A Royal Husband. His name is King Jesus. Have you met Him? If you are looking for a man, trying turning to the one who is looking for you. As my college friends say, He is the bomb.

His love truly satisfies.

Sisters, whether married or not, it was never the human man’s job to meet all our needs. Nor our job to meet all of his needs. It is, however, Jesus’s desire to meet our longings. He longs to release and restore us, to enliven us. Then out of this overflow we pour into others whether that is in our relationships, marriages, families, or communities.

Ephesians 1:23 says that Jesus fills everything in every way.

So what do we do with that? Sigh and say “oh well.” Or do we scratch our heads and think it must be something we’re doing wrong? Do we think “Ah ha! I need to change men”? Or “Ah ha! I need to change my man”?

Or do we stop and listen? Really listen, and hear that cry from somewhere deep within, the hunger that aches in our bellies and instead of going to the mall or the spa or the gym, go to the only source that can answer the call and satisfy the hunger.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 43

Let’s Get Real Here:

Where do you go when you ache with longing? Do you think Jesus can meet your every need? Even your need for romance and physical intimacy? Do you believe He wants to fulfill your desires? Do you give yourself permission to voice your desires?

Tired of Being a Duck Yet?

When you choose to live on the “How am I doing?” spectrum you live somewhere between the Trophy Woman and the Invisible Woman. But you are still living out of a lie. The whole spectrum is a lie, from one end to the other.

So it doesn’t matter at what point you fall, it’s still a point on spectrum based on a lie.

God has a better way. It’s called freedom. It’s not that you are not aware of yourself. But you are aware of the Truth about you. Position rather than condition. There is a way to live and move with Jesus so that you are more concerned and focused on His opinion than anyone else’s.

And do you know what His opinion of you is?

I didn’t think so.

That is why we are always on the hunt. We don’t know, or believe, what the God of the universe has to say about us. We don’t know who we are, because we don’t know whose we are.

There is a childhood story about an ugly duckling. The plight of this duckling is that it did not look like the other ducks and so she was shamed and discarded and abused by the other ducklings in her flock. She tried very hard to be like the other ducks. But alas, she suffered terrible heartache because she was so ugly, or unlike, the others.

I think God would have us look more closely at the story as we look at His love. The problem of the story is not that the duckling was ugly.

The problem is that the duckling wasn’t a duckling at all.

It was something altogether MORE. So are you.

 The duckling failed to know, or believe the truth, because her only point of reference was the other ducks. She kept trying live up to their definitions. But she simply could not cut it as a duck.

There was a cure.

When the duckling saw what she really was, the truth of her definition, she no longer tried to be a duck. She could care less about the ducks. The glorious swan got a glimpse of what she really was, and what she was really becoming.

To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.

We don’t need to worry about being “ugly” ducklings. We are not ducklings at all.

Christ in you the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

It doesn’t say the hope of being like everyone else. It doesn’t even say being puffed up about your glory. It declares, proclaims, announces:

Christ.

In you.

The Hope.

 Of Glory.

The Lord started telling me I wasn’t a duck. And over time I believed Him.

What is God telling you? Are you tired of trying to be a duck yet?

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 42

Let’s Get Real Here:

What is God telling you? Are you tired of trying to be a duck yet? What are the implications of being a swan? What would it take for you to believe God’s truth about you?

The Invisible Woman

The other side of the False Woman is the notion of being the ugly one.

I call this non-sexualizing yourself. If you can hold up a sign that says, women are not for decoration, you have taken yourself out of the game. Okay forget the sign. But you see women like this everyday. They go to school or work. Some marry. Have children. Go to church. They are great people. It’s just that something is missing. If they only had half a face, it would make sense of how you feel in their presence. That deformity would explain why you feel there is another whole dimension to them as women that is missing. There is a part of them that they have tried to, or have been forced to, shut off. Their internal logic is: if I don’t look like a woman, I won’t have to feel like a woman, then you can’t reject me as a woman.

We all say we don’t care about all that beauty stuff, at one time or another. I think we try to convince ourselves that we don’t care. But the truth is we do care, only we feel we can never win the beauty game. So we quit, and try to become invisible.

 The Invisible Woman has a way of disregarding herself. Or maybe the word is dismissing. She believes she doesn’t count. She feels overlooked or ignored. Even absent.

We all go through seasons of feeling a little beat up with the ugly stick … but this is different. This is a way of life. The Invisible Woman has come to believe she has no womanly attributes of value. She believes this so deeply that she tries to accentuate or make up for her “lacking.”

My friend “Sally” is a perfect example. She told us her story once and said without blinking an eye, “I knew I wasn’t pretty but I was smart. So I learned that if I could make people laugh, they would like me anyway.”

I wanted to hold her and tell her what God thinks:

You are altogether beautiful, my darling,

And there is no blemish in you.

You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride

You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes.

Song of Solomon 4: 7, 9

 I am not sure she would dare to believe it. Do you?

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 42

Let’s Get RealHere:

What do you believe about your womanly attributes, your value? What do you think of the Song of Solomon passage? Do you believe it’s for you?

So Here’s The Rub

So here is the rub. If God made us and thinks we are beautiful, why are we not to make our lives about being beautiful?

 As with everything in the journey with Jesus, it is about our heart motive. We have one of two choices. To worship the created or the Creator. We can be led astray by the enticements around us which lead us to hypersexuality, idolatry, and despair.

Or we can follow the path of Jesus.

He said,  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Never forget that God looks at the heart. When there is an understanding of who we are, because of whose we are, the game is over. I take care of myself because it is a way of worship, a way of saying thank you to my maker. It doesn’t increase my worth. It just polishes the shine of a diamond. Of course you are beautiful. Of course I am beautiful. And, no I don’t need your eyes all over my body to confirm that. I don’t need your knowing smile of appreciation to make me tingle.

I knew the walls were falling one day when I pulled up to a gas station and saw the pack of males. In the past, I would have either made eye contact and smiled to draw their attention (Trophy Woman) or I would have ducked my head in shame knowing they would not notice me (Invisible Woman).

But that day, I got out of my car looked to the sky and smiled. “He delights in me,” I said out loud. I nearly skipped into the store to pay for gas. I was overwhelmed by love of the One True Beholder.

And the guys… I have no idea what they did. I totally didn’t care.

Excerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 41

Let’s Get Real Here:

What do you think and feel when you read that God is your One True Beholder?

The False Woman

Let me give you an couple of illustrations of the False Woman.

There was a photo I got by email. It The photo captures one lone woman, pale and plain, holding a sign that said, “Women are not decorations.” She is glaring at the short-short clad women in Hooters® tank tops standing right beside her. They are bronzed, dyed and pushed up. They look at her with mocking smiles, and pity.

The only caption was “Think she is jealous?

I looked a long, long time at that photo.

My first reaction was, no actually I am not jealous. I am sick. I am sick for both groups of women who have totally missed the point of being a woman. God’s woman.

The False Woman has two faces, or two ends of the spectrum. Most of us live somewhere on the spectrum. One face, or end of the spectrum, is like the Hooters® girl. I call this obsessive desire for beauty the Trophy Woman. The other face, or spectrum end I call the Invisible Woman.

The Hooters® girl has determined that it is only what’s on the outside that counts. She has to look “just so” to be considered a “Worthy Woman.” Her success is measured by her bust size, her waist size and how many heads she turns. So much so, she is paid to turn heads. Not only does she live for that look, she is prostituting her beauty, and gets paid to let guys look down her shirt.

Let’s revisit the email photo. The homely protesting woman has determined that it is only what’s on the inside that counts. She has bought hook, line and sinker that it is only about “Inner Beauty.” She’s decided all that fluff and primp effort is vanity. Somewhere she has believed that she can’t win at the beauty game, so she has quit the game altogether. Can you see her complete lack of effort is just an extreme opposite of the Trophy Woman’s obsessive effort? I have found when you dig a little with the Invisible Woman, just like in the Trophy Woman, there is almost always a gaping wound.

The Invisible Woman wears a mantle of heartache. Her face, her countenance, her posture, screams out unloved, unattractive, uninvolved, unaware of God’s original design of a woman. To somehow separate herself from the Trophy Woman lie, she goes to the opposite extreme.

When I talk about beauty God- style, it is not about denying it, but about embracing it.

 In this photo you can see the pain in the protestor’s eyes. Somebody somewhere told this woman that she was not lovely. And she believed that lie. When you see a woman who is un-tended to, I don’t mean no make-up, I mean un-invested in, un-cared for, you know who I am talking about, she is living out of a definition other than her maker’s.

Whether Trophy or Invisible, both women represent the same problem from the opposite ends of the spectrum called the False Woman. If we don’t live in God’s definition then we settle for the Hollywood cultural definitions of womanhood, we let ourselves be put in assigned boxes:

Got it,

Might get it,

Used to have it,

Never had it.

We have been put in these boxes, like it or not. So when we look around the room and see all the other boxes, we have to do something to make our assigned box seem like home. So we rationalize our health, our body structure, our genes, eating patterns, our drama and trauma stories, whatever it takes, to justify the box we have been assigned to. But guess what? All of these boxes are lies.

All of them. Lies.

Exerpt taken from Unhindered, Chapter 41

Let’s Get Real Here:

Where do you fall on the False Woman spectrum? Can you name the lies and wounds that hold you there? What do you think of beauty God-style?