The Paradoxical Beauty of Life

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a blog, and I talked to someone the other day who informed me that apparently my entire family on the east coast (plus their family we don’t know about very much, and their family’s friends, and more than that) are all reading my blogs on a regular basis. Knowing that I have friends in Boise reading it when they can, a friend in Utah who gets to them every now and then, a friend in Oregon who has had her church mentors read it as well…it’s quite a revelation for me.

You see, I had it in my head that no one really read them and that I was mostly posting them for my own sake, and therefore I stopped posting for about a month or so there. It’s not that I haven’t had thoughts to write about, there’ve been a ton of amazing revelations—it’s just that I’ve been writing them in my personal journal, convinced that no one was really reading them online.

This summer an amazing friend of mine in Boise, Ashley, prophesied over me, saying that God has given me a gift of words, and that I need to write. “What you write will be spread to other people, and those people will share it with others, and so on…you just need to do it. Write. When you write, you will change the world with your words.”

Jennifer Glover has also spoken this over my life, saying “I think you have a gift of putting things into words that have never been spoken before. Things that have never been put into words—indescribable things—you’re so articulate. God has given you the ability to articulate things. I think that people who have never been able to define some things in their life will read your words and suddenly feel like that’s their story on the page, spoken for the first time. You’ve given words to it.”

I got to Lewiston and went to Hope Chapel one Sunday night because RiverCity hadn’t starting its evening service yet, and I had worked all morning at Starbucks. After the service a guy came up to me as I was talking to the pastor and a few others and said that God had given him a word for me, and he said “You are the head and not the tail. I see people following you…you’re a leader.” He went on to say “I see you at a desk with a pen, writing. That’s where you belong…I really see it. That’s where you belong.” I’d never met this guy before. There was no way he could have known that, if not for God showing him.

It’s not just that it’s been spoken over my life multiple times, it’s that I’m seeing it now…people reading. All I need to do is write. Here’s my confession: the REASON God asked these people to speak this out over my life is because I haven’t been writing. They don’t know that. I write in my journal, and I write some blogs…but when I sit down at my computer and open that blank word document, that cursor blinks at me on the blank page…and something in my heart seizes up, and my mind goes blank, and my attention goes somewhere else…and I walk away.

For the life of me, I can’t move that cursor. I’ve got so much to say, but no idea how to say it. And the cursor blinks at me, waiting…just like there are people I’ve never met and don’t know of who are waiting for my words, even if they themselves don’t know it yet. I’ve got a calling…

The reason that I’m telling you—my invisible readers—all of this is because you each have a calling, and a calling is such a complicated thing. Writing is one of many callings and giftings I have, but I can’t ignore it. A part of me is afraid to write, I think…afraid that no one wants to read. Everybody is a writer, you know, or think they are. It’s not exactly something special…what if I’m just one of those pretenders and never really get published or anything? What if…? And so out of caution, or fear perhaps, I doubt myself and that cursor blinks at me.

The Lord has been going at me from all sides, asking me to write. In fact, the other night I had a dream and woke up at 3:30am murmuring about needing to read the book of Ezekiel. I got up, went to the bathroom and walked around, then went back to bed—the entire time murmuring “Ezekiel chapter 1” over and over in a half-asleep state. So the next day I carried my Living Translation bible with me to my classes and started reading Ezekiel chapter 1.

In the first chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord calls him to be a prophet in a powerful vision…he sees the strangest things. These powerful-looking angels that are creative and frightening and powerful, and above them is a glass dome, and above that he sees God sitting on a throne of lapis lazuli, with a torso like “gleaming amber, flickering like a fire” and below the waist “a burning flame, shining with splendor” and around him was “a glowing halo [of light], like a rainbow shining in the clouds on a rainy day.” (go read it…it’s quite thrilling and frightening, really. Not the sugar-coated sweet version of God and Angels that we usually see.)

The Lord then speaks to Ezekiel, telling him that he’s got a message to give to the people and that he’s going to use Ezekiel to tell them. He hands a scroll to Ezekiel, which has the message the Lord wants him to speak (of doom and death really) written on it, and says “Son of Man, eat what I am giving you—eat this scroll! Then go and give its message to the people of Israel. Fill your stomach with this.” And Ezekiel says that when he ate it, it tasted like honey in his mouth. There are all these images of writing and life and death and redemption in this book…the valley of dry bones passage (one of my top ten favorites) is here. And the powerful way that he portrays our God…wow.

I think that we forget how powerful our Lord and Savior is. Read Ezekiel and Revelations and Daniel and Isaiah…any of the prophets, really, but Ezekiel and Daniel really do it in such a crazy visual way. Those angels that really kinda frighten me? Yeah, he MADE them. This God who shows himself above it all on a throne, shining with Glory and Power, with a torso like shining bronze and legs like fire…who commands armies of angels who shake the entire earth when they step and cause pestilence and plagues to sweep through a city with one movement of their arms…yikes. Read it….and ask yourself this question: how BIG is your God? How big are you allowing him to be in your life?

Here’s the really cool thing. This God came to earth and confined himself to human form, human limitations, and went by the name of Jesus. He never sinned and he allowed us to beat him, spit on him, humiliate him, and ultimately kill him. Then he rose from the dead, and ascended to the THRONE. (I’ll come back to that.) And because of that, Jesus says that we are sons and daughters, adopted into the kingdom of God through Jesus and are co-laborers with Christ (see Galatians and Ephesians) and “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Let me say that again, some of you didn’t catch that. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers/sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)

What is this saying? We are NEW CREATIONS in Jesus, and even though we know that scripture, so many of us walk around with our eyes fixed on the cross and our old, sinful nature. However, Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. He rose from the grave and ascended to the throne! Please go to www.biblegateway.com and read Hebrews 10:13-27,35-39 before reading on to the next sentence.

Why do we keep walking around in fear of screwing up, saying we’re being “Careful” when really we’re just not believing that the Lord Jesus Christ has set us free? He’s been talking to me about this… Jesus talks about loving our enemies, and he says: “If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:47-48)

Woah, woah Jesus. Perfect? How can anyone be perfect? The church so often preaches out of a false sense of humility that we are nothing and sinful beings and can never be perfect. How, then, can Jesus demand that we must be perfect? Paul says that we have died with Christ and been raised with him, and are being transformed into his likeness. (read Philippians 3-working towards perfection in Christ.) The bible says we must be humble, but true humility isn’t degrading what God has made.

Look at it this way: if a painter makes his masterpiece and somebody walks by and says “that thing is terrible! It’s ugly and done all wrong” how does that honor the painter? In the same way, god made us. He made us and chose us and predestined us for glory. By calling ourselves sinful and ugly and always shuffling off our God-given abilities (such as my writing or paintingm or whatever your gifts and abilities are) as “oh, it’s not me, I’m terrible at everything really, it’s Jesus…” we are NOT honoring him. We are insulting him.

He made us with those talents! He crafted us in our mother’s womb! We are his masterpiece! When someone compliments you for something that you do well, say “thank you very much” and give God the credit and glory for making you with these awesome talents. Moses was described as the most humble man in the world…it wasn’t because he said he couldn’t do things and was worthless. It’s because he did things and gave God the glory for them. By walking in our gifts and our calling, our lives glorify our God.

Forgive me, I’ve gotten off on a humility tangent. If I’m not making sense (which is very possible) read the book “The Supernatural Ways of Royalty” by pastor Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church in Redding, CA. It’s worth every penny you’ll spend on it, I promise. I have a friend in the intern program at that church actually—Kevra.

Basically what I’m saying is this: How big are you allowing God to be in your life? Are you trusting him to transform you into the likeness of his Son and make you a new creature, with a new life, and a new nature? It isn’t our nature to sin anymore. (Romans 8). Walk with confidence in your Lord and Savior, unafraid of the master of this world. Don’t be afraid to walk in your calling and your giftings, which the Lord placed in you.

Focus on where Jesus in NOW—on the throne, risen from the dead, glorified in victory—and don’t just stand still when you get saved, thinking that there is nothing beyond the cross. The Cross is the beginning of this new salvation life, not the goal of it. It is essential and important, but if we keep sinning so that we can keep coming to the cross and repenting because we don’t know any kind of faith other than this…how does that glorify God? We are to be like our savior…who is sitting in glory and victory on the throne in heaven at God’s right hand. What does say about where he’s taking us on this journey we walk with him toward perfection…wow.

To tie this entry together, the Lord asked me to write. He sent me to college to get a writing degree. He’s told me through person after person and I didn’t get it, so he told me through a person I’ve never met before, and I still didn’t quite get it. So he told me in a dream to read a book that would remind me of his request of my life—that I write—in a way that also reminded me how powerful he is.

If I do what he asks and simply write…even though I may get it wrong the first ten times, I’ll eventually get it right. Even though it may be rejected by publishers, it will eventually be accepted. He is powerful enough to make it whatever he needs it to be and get it to the people who he wants to read it, regardless of what may stand in the way…if only I, like Ezekiel, simply use what he has given me and do what he says.

God bless,
Jennie