The Paradoxical Beauty of Life

Okay, that exchange never actually happened. I made it up, but I’ve been in many such classrooms having conversations just like this…and people over the summer good-naturedly laugh at my tendency to always be trying to figure out the deep, profound meaning of everything! I think, perhaps, that it stems from my major. Discovering the profound meaning behind every tiny, insignificant thing is what we do.

I had a conversation with God about understanding this summer. He wanted to take me deeper into friendships and deeper into this whole “love your neighbor as yourself” concept than I was comfortable with. This was after the David and Jonathan friendship revelation I’ve told so many of you about already, but led to him speaking to me for a month about ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’

“God, I don’t want ‘David and Jonathan’ friendships! I wasted and ruined so much of my life pursuing that!” I yelled, standing alone in our house.

“What if you wanted it for a reason?” God said. “These friendships are very different, which they should be. The ones you had before you were saved were not holy in my sight or based on me.”

“But God…”

“Why do you really not want them?” God always knows the deeper reason’s I’m not saying.

I bit my lip. “Well…because I’m afraid.”

I moved to the couch and sat down, talking to God about how I don’t understand it, and I want to.

“What do you want to understand?” He asked me.

I laughed, weakly, and dropped my gaze to the floor. “Everything…” I murmured.

“WHY do you want to understand? What is your purpose behind it?”

“My purpose?” I thought for a moment. “Well, because I don’t want to trespass against you, and I don’t want to trespass against her [my friends]. I just don’t want to screw up again.”

“ `and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever` ”

Even as I started contemplating this scripture, he spoke again. “ `He leads me along the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff will comfort me.’ ”

This ended my argument against him.

You see, these scriptures speak of how powerful the Lord is…and that one of the things we are to ask for and trust him for is that he will keep us along the path of righteousness. He will keep us from sin. Even Paul says that when you are born again it is no longer your nature to sin—your new nature is to do righteous things and follow the ways of God. That’s not something we do in our own power you know…we are new creatures in Jesus Christ.

It wasn’t until I trusted God and his Word that he then explained David and Jonathan’s “he loved him as himself” friendship to me—which is what had been bothering me for SO long. This is a lot of what God did in me this summer: He took me into a deeper realm of my capacity for love than I’ve allowed myself to go to, he taught me about his view of friendships (the Bible’s) and their role and function in life, and gave me the confidence in him to be confidant in myself.

The funny thing is the things he did through me this summer because of what he did in me. Things he did at my job at CityLight, conversations I had with people at Starbucks in which I could say with 100% confidence that “I AM delivered from homosexuality, without a shadow of a doubt”, and people God brought into my life from church to mentor and pour into. Even the depth of my friendship with my roommate was used by God to give people hope in HIM and minister to people. I love that everything in our lives is fodder for God’s use.

I love that I’m a piece of the larger plans of God, and that every instruction He’s given me and everything he’s done in me is a part of something larger. He doesn’t do thing in us purely for OUR sake—he does it for his sake, and so that he can USE it to do things in other people! It’s like God doing something IN YOU is the key that opens more doors to ministry in your life—doors that would have otherwise remained closed because you weren’t ready yet. And ministry = people; faces, names, lives, relationships, and all the “gray area” that relationships entail. There really is no handbook to how handle a relationship—though the bible is the best resource there is for the subject.

What’s the point of this? Well, I was looking at my wall last night and smiling at the painting hanging on it with some hefty nails. It was painted by my great friend Sarah Chafin on a piece of drywall for my birthday. Every time something changes in my life, the painting gains a new meaning for me. At first it was an amazing gift from my friend that blew my mind and was very beautiful. I looked at it and thought of how wonderful and profound Godly friendships are, and the impact they have had on my life. I thought of all God taught me about David and Johnathan.

Then I started looking forward to Lewiston this fall and the Lord was speaking to me about fear and promises—the message on the painting is about the promises of God and dreams. It makes me remember one of my favorite sermons by Judah Smith at last year’s GC*B LIVE where he talked about us having God’s point of view. I look at it and am reminded to look at Lewiston through God’s eyes, with his eternal point of view, and not through my own. Through my eyes there’s little hope, little fruit, and all of this hardship and struggle to face—junk left over from previous years. Lonliness. BUT GOD SEES PROMISE! He sees a whole sky full of stars here. He sees amazing fruit and a harvest ready to be gathered in. His point of view is so much more hopeful and exciting than mine.

Now that I’m here, the painting reminds me of something else as well. I found out not too long before I left Boise that the drywall came from the wall of my church when they put in the media room. I literally took a piece of Capital Christian Center with me! I’m reminded of the love and friendships that are there—the home I have, the people who welcome me every time I come back with open arms and celebration, and the anointing of that house. I’m reminded of the things God taught me there this summer and how he used them, and the person I chose to be there.

Jo, a wonderful woman of God I worked with at City light, was praying with me one night before I left and said “please remember I will be watching and waiting for your return,” in reference to a conversation we had one night when I was struggling with the idea of leaving, and she prayed with me. As the father waited with open arms and celebration for his son to come home, we’ll be waiting for you, she said, and the card CityLight gave me had this scripture inside “…on your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent…” ~Isaiah 62:6. Jo spent hours trying to find it before I got there.

Even though I’m far away, I’m still a part of that church—an arm that’s been extended from Capital Christian Center in Meridian to Lewiston to embrace the people here with the love of God. I am the same person—full of hope, passion, love, vision, and gifting. Sarah’s painting reminds me, now, that the transition that usually happens when I come to Lewiston WILL NOT happen this year. I am who God made me to be, and no change in social group or environment will dim the sunshine that radiates out of me. That “dimming” and the perceived reasons for it have never been from God, but rather from my own flesh.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” ~Romans 15:17

Let’s trust in the Lord—His perspective, His might, His plans, His love. Trust and abide. Then we’re filled with joy and peace…and our abounding hope overflows. Perhaps to some, talking like this seems naïve. I had a couple conversations this week where the person I was talking to had nothing positive to say. Every other sentence I said, they came back with “be careful about…” or “yeah, those people are so…” or “the ministry failed because…” or “don’t get your hopes up, just…” or “well, that’s good and all, but you should just…” I left feeling deflated and discouraged.

The conversation ran in circles for two and a half hours. I came home from classes after that and sat on my bed, looking at the painting on my wall and remembering all that God has been reminding me of through it. I called my friend Rebecca in Boise and talked to her for an hour—and felt reminded all the more of hope and joy. I’m filled with purpose and determination, peace and joy, and I pray that it overflows out of me.

“Just” nothing. Let’s run after the promises of God together, confidant of our new nature in Jesus Christ, and that God will keep us safe. He is a God of abundance, not limitations and “just”s! Let’s grab a hold of his promise to lead us along the paths of righteousness. “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” ~John 10:10

Let’s overflow with abundant confidence in our Lord, shall we? After all, we’re “Getting Ready” and we’re “Abiding” in him “By Faith”. (ever notice how all of the services at CCC have been preaching different aspects of the same message all summer? Yep yep…I think so…It’s good stuff.) He’ll take care of all the “be careful about…’s I think. If I had wandered around afraid and careful all the time, I would never have experienced the victory I did and seen so much of his deliverance in other people this summer. (1 John 3:20-22) Confidence comes from God’s word, not from ourselves. He is faithful and good! And awfully trusting, by the way.

Your Sister in Christ,

Jennie Smith