I Just Needed a Little Jazz

Friday Night: Meeting with students all morning. Substitute teaching in the afternoon. Hanging out in the Somali mall in the evening with a good friend. Saturday: Lunch with Grandparents. Babysitting at night. Sunday: Taken over by the fear of what people think Monday: Deeply processing life. Tuesday: Gas leak in our apartment. Later Tuesday Night: Date I planned to surprise Nick- Jazz Concert.

Honestly and truly, my life/circumstances are not hard. Not hard at all. But there is something that is extremely hard for me: the thought of someone not liking me. Alas, this life-long fear has been met by the grace of God as of last night when Nick and I went to see a jazz concert by the Jason Harms Band. They played at Bethel College and radically gave me a refreshing perspective.

They just released their new album titled, “The Land of the Fear of Men.” Each song is artistically written about this theme. What does it mean? I wish I could describe to you the haunting and amazing sounds that made up their song, “The Land of the Fear of Men.” They intended for the song to give off a scary and riveting vibe because if we were honest with ourselves, we could see just how debilitating it is when most of our motives behind our words and actions are because of the fear of other people. How we’ll do anything to gain approval. How we are chained to wanting the approval of others… we go so far as to fear each other more than God… so far as to think people are the ultimate judges of our lives rather than God Himself. I’ll be the first to admit this, and am probably the foremost of people-fearers.

Jason Harms expressed this land that we live in very poetically and startlingly in this song. Here are the lyrics to capture its essence:

The Land of the fear of men,
She lies near the Devil’s den
In hollows foul
With praises’ howl.

We’ll travel her now and then
In hopes to secure a friend.
But all are slaves
Or sunk in graves-
The land of the fear of men.

When fears and anxieties
Form Clouds that canopy,
Forfeiting light’s true guide,
We follow our compass, pride.

The Land of the fear of men
Is haunting at every bend.
In oaks of grey
The nooses sway.

Her hills form a prowler’s pen
Ensnaring the singing wren,
Where praises made
Disguise the blade-
The Land of the fear of men

Arguments with Nick often rise out of my tendency to over-evaluate a social situation we were in… did I say the right thing? Do the right thing? Did I cause this person to like me or not? Do they think I’m always… Do they understand where I’m coming from… Did they get the wrong idea when I said… I don’t want people to think that…. And on and on and on! This anxiety and fear of what others think will often result in one of us impatiently telling the other, “You are way too concerned with what people think of you!”

Call me the world’s largest people-pleaser, but Jason Harms helped me see this in a much more horrific and honest way than it actually sounds. People pleasing sounds so frilly. So common. It sounds like I’m just dancing around in a tu-tu handing out May-Day baskets, right? Wrong.

People pleasing is majorly a result of unbelief and fear. Instead of the tu-tu guise, its more like I’m obnoxiously wearing a sign that says, “Please like me! Please! Approve of me!” It is what happens when I do not believe or trust in God’s total love and acceptance of me. The gospel has been said to me in many different ways, but I like this short phrase best that measures our status as believers in front of God: You are more sinful than you could ever imagine, but more loved and accepted by God than you could ever think or dream. Really?! I don’t so much like to hear that “sin” part, but I like the sound of me being loved and accepted. If I’m honest, that’s what I want most. If I don’t understand the depths of God’s love for me, I’ll never understand the security I can have in Him.

It takes BELIEF to feel secure in God’s presence. So why is it so hard to believe in the freedom and forgiveness offered to me in Christ? I think it is pride. What is pride? www.dictionary.com says…

pride
   /praɪd/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [prahyd] Show IPA Pronunciation
noun, verb, prid⋅ed, prid⋅ing.
–noun
1. a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
2. the state or feeling of being proud.
3. a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one’s position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.

The third definition says, “a dignified sense of what is due to oneself…” The gospel doesn’t make sense at ALL because it trumps our dignified sense of what is due to ourselves. Our pride makes us live in this sense of what is due, what we deserve, what we owe, etc. When we can clearly see the depths of our sin and depravity without God, we run to our pride. We think of every possible way to make up for our imperfection. This attempt is the #1 reason that makes the gospel so hard to believe for me. The gospel is a free gift. Its exactly like someone reaching over to slide their VISA card for my grocery bill at the grocery store. My pride and sense of what I owe screams, “Oh, no no! REALLY, PLEASE, you don’t have to do that! Let ME pay, really, they’re my groceries, I should pay for them… I can understand that I owe money to pay for what I picked out, but I cannot understand how someone could just pay for something that I deserve to pay for. And that is the gospel. That is why its so hard to trust in it.

Before trusting in Christ, my sin separated me from God. Paul writes to the Ephesians (new followers of Christ) in verse 2:12 “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Paul is reminding them of who they were without knowing of God’s love. The Ephesians, before they knew about Christ, probably felt how we feel when we don’t hope in God: Like we are on trial every day. And the judges are not God- they are people. Thankfully, the apostle Paul came to their city to tell them about Jesus Christ and how the trial is OVER! The verdict is in- they are sinful, yet loved and approved by God!

Eph 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

The Ephesians must have read Paul’s words with utter surprise when he writes in Eph 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

They must have thought, “WHAT?! God saw us in our sin and LOVED us? And now he wants to be kind to us? IMMEASURABLE grace? What does that even mean?

I find myself feeling like a lost Ephesian hearing the gospel for the first time. My only hope use to be that people would approve of me somehow. I only lived in the Land of the Fear of Men. But now, as a Christian, the Land of the Fear of Men has not gone away. I still travel there probably daily. Because a lot of the time I just don’t believe its true- that God’s love for me is so steadfast and secure- that I am actually completely detached from the viewpoint, ridicule, judgment, false accusation, or praise from people.

I am so accustomed to living like I am on trial in the world’s eyes and it is so hard to believe that the trial is over because some man came and died on a cross for my sin some 2,000 years ago… its so easy to let doubt take over the truth… but God is faithful, and if I begin to completely doubt his love and reality, He’ll find a way to show me all over again. And my doubt cannot stop God.

What is GLORIOUS is that, if we are trusting in Christ, even if we don’t “feel” secure in His presence, we ARE and we cannot be separated from it. Paul writes in Romans 8:35- 39

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This security in a relationship with God begins when a sinner’s eyes are opened and suddenly all of the ways that they’ve been living and thinking begin to feel heavy and they begin to wonder and question everything. They feel like an overinflated balloon of secrecy that needs to be popped, exposed, confessed, and repented of. At least, this is exactly how I felt my junior year of college. I was so inflated with sin, that I popped. I began to expose myself to Christian women in my life and repented of the sin I had been hiding to God- and nothing has ever felt so good, so refreshing, so FREEING in all my life. I have never felt newer than I did once I let go of my old life and began all over again.

So… if its true that God’s love for me is ALWAYS there, always singing over me, I can truly feel secure at all times. Caring what people think of me more than what God thinks of me is because I don’t understand what God thinks of me. Its like walking on thin ice thinking that A) Wow. God must be smiling on me today because of all of the rules I followed and all of the good things I did. Or B) God must hate me because of the words I just spoke or because of the lies I just told, etc. If “what God thinks of me” is based on my successes or failures, then I don’t have a chance at feeling secure in his presence! Not feeling secure in His presence leads me to search for security, love, and approval from everyone but Him.

Because Christ lived and died in my place, I can feel so secure in God’s love for me, that I can live detached from what people think of me. How do I attain this status with God? The status where he pardons my sin and sees me as clean, made new, perfect and beautiful? I repent of the things that aren’t glorifying to God in my life and trust in Christ. I surrender my burdens, anxieties, and fears in to His hands. I melt at His compassion and mercy over my life. I relish in this new identity. In this new era of freedom of which I never knew before I trusted Christ. To “trust Christ” isn’t just some Christian jargon. It means to believe that when He died on the cross, it was enough to cover all of our sin. It was the payment we deserve, but now we are promised eternal life through Christ.

So, last Tuesday night, when I was angered by the gas leak in our apartment, I was able to slip away into the beat and song of the Jason Harms Band. I was awakened to my unbelief in God’s love and acceptance of me and reminded that His love is always there, and nothing can separate me from it. Nothing can free me more from what others think of me than knowing what God thinks of me.

He doesn’t accept me because of myself, but because of Christ.

Amen to what God can do through jazz music!

If it is a contest of Strength, Behold He is Mighty…

In Job 9:19, Job says “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?”

Job is so truthful. He doesn’t pretend to understand God or presume to have all knowledge. He regards God within his shattered life and speaks in his uncomfort, honestly stating that he loathes his life. His whole family has died and his body is taken over by disease. Satan’s goal is to get Job to curse God- so he takes away all that Job has been blessed with.

In Job 1:11, Satan says to God, “But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” God agrees to let Satan test Job, “And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”

In Job chapter 9, Job speaks as though he is in a battle with God. In all of his suffering, he acknowledges God’s total supremacy and power. When Job says, “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?” He knows that his own strength is not stronger than God’s. He knows that God is completely just in all his ways, the ultimate and most perfect judge.

Job goes on in chapter 10 to be even more real and vulnerable, “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1)

It is clear from reading in Job that God wants something from us. He doesn’t want our good deeds or our perfect satisfaction at all times- but our broken hearts pleading before him- acknowledging our frailty and inability to help ourselves. He wants us to be so broken that we cry out to him- like Job. And he wants us to cry out in honesty, in fear of God, in belief that he is real and powerful. How comforting to know that God, in his wisdom, included broken people filled with calamity, sin, and bitterness in the bible. We can be comforted because it is these very type of people that can still have relationship with the God of the Universe, who can cry out to him in the midst of despair.

In chapter 7, Job is hopeless. He believes his life is ruined and that there is no hope of redemption or restoration. He’s basically expecting death. He says in Job 7:11, “Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” He goes on in verses 13- 16, “When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint, then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.”

Job sees his sickness and despair. Rather than hoping in the eternity after his death, he is expecting death to take him and end it all. It is a hopeless plight. Even so, he is honest in his despair, which allows me to feel freedom to be honest in my own despair.

Bildad speaks in Chapter 8 that Job should repent of his hopelessness. He encourages Job in verses 8:5-7, “If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning is small, your latter days will be very great.” Verse 12 says, “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

There is so much hope for Job in his most lowly hours! Is there not the same hope for us in our most lonely, most terrified, most beaten, most bruised, most ungodly, most helpless hours?

In the beginning of Job, Job thinks he is righteous on his own, that he is without sin. But God reveals to him that he is sinful and Job begins to have understanding. Job 13: 23, “How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.” He believes in God’s redemption, in his power to remove our sin… “For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.”

God can cover over our iniquity when we cry out to him, in raw emotion and despair. We can trust him to remove all our sin and to promise us better days ahead. We can talk to God in anger, in despair, in untrust, in disbelief- and hope that he can restore us and mark us with redemption and total forgiveness and blessing.

Job’s faith is contagious. I want to be real with God like Job. I want to learn to hope in God through my own struggles and despair.

Isn’t it great? We can come to God as we are. He is stronger than we are and powerful enough to break our addictions and patterns of crap in our lives.

I am so hopeful today.

Quieted.

I can’t really think out loud, speak out loud, or process anything out loud. After a big fight in marriage after a constant few weeks without a big fight, I am quieted. I am slow to carry out any actions or sentences at all today.

I am meek today. Sober- minded. Outside looking into myself. It’s a confusing picture as I stare at me. Who is this girl? Why does she care about the things she cares about? Why is she always so unsatisfied with people and circumstances in this world? Why is she always looking in the wrong places to get joy and fulfillment? And why is she so dang sensitive and stubborn?

I don’t even know what the problem is. I don’t understand myself. Today, the thing that I am most afraid of is myself. When I am not satisfied or an expectation doesn’t get met, I become filled with anger. No one really knows this but my husband (and now you too). In our fight, I became so irrational and said all the words I now wish I could take back because in the heat of anger, I said things that weren’t true- things that hurt and cut deep. Why would I go down that road? I let sin consume me and turn into a fire in my heart. I let it burn, and its still burning. I am so weighed down in my sin today.

I am so selfish. I cry out for God’s forgiveness and he’ll freely give it. But I sure wont forgive others that fast. What is wrong with me? I’ve learned the gospel, let it saturate my brokenness and let it make me feel good, but I refuse to act gracious and forgiving to people like imperfect husbands and friends and family members, etc. I hate myself for this. When people hurt me, I invisibly stamp a sign on my forehead that says, “Hey you jerk! Now you owe me! Once you’ve made it up to me, I’ll start being nice again.” I counter-think to myself…ummm…Katie? Do you even know the depths of your own sin and how much grace you have been given? You hypocrite! Why have you set your expectations off the charts for relational perfection in your life? You can’t get that in human relationships! You were forgiven so you can forgive. So forgive already! Stop holding grudges and having the attitude that people owe you! No one owes you anything! You deserve Hell because of your sin, but Christ has chosen to have compassion and mercy on you and your sin-stained heart. He has purified you and erased all the sin. Can’t you forgive others like this?

I want to. I really do. I wish that I could become this way overnight. Yet, I know it is a lifelong process. The reality of eternity that is set upon my heart shows me that this life is really short and temporary, yet it feels soooooooooo long and like forever that I’ll be stuck in my immaturity.

I just want to escape today. I want to get out of here. Out of my skin. I want to be someone with a different temperament and a different outlook on circumstances and God. But I’m caught in the middle of a tornado it seems, circling around in the same patterns and crap and reacting to life in horrible ways.

I can walk out of our door and pretend to the world, but inside our apartment, the truth comes out. The truth that I’m not trusting in Christ or treasuring him. What happens is I start treasuring everything else and running to everything else to satisfy the deep longings in me, but none of these things can be my savior and promise me hope and a future, like Christ.

I’m just going to let it all out. I idolize Nick. I idolize relationships and social life. I think that they are Gods. I think that they will treat me exactly like Jesus does- with total care and tenderness and complete understanding. Where have I let myself go? I have begun to create a false idea of reality in my head. We are all sinful people and in need of a savior from it. The things I so often worship are not real God’s. My husband is not going to give me the total affections of Jesus, because he is only a human. He is finite in his ability to search and know me, like my God and Father. He does a pretty great job of this, but its those moments in which he cannot actually be God for me that I unleash the anger.

I need to take this afternoon and read God’s word and pray. I need to repent of the idolatry and obsessions in my life that are not God. I need to repent of my irrational anger and of the hurtful words that I spoke. I need to pray to feel the weight of Christ’s forgiveness. I need to pray to be slow to speak, slow to anger, and forgiving of others. I need to be quieted in my anger.

Still pressing on, though its deeply challenging today.

Thanks for reading- and of course- advice welcomed.

I, Too, am a Refugee

“I, Too, am a Refugee” Personal Narrative
By Katie Vanderheyden October 17, 2007

Rain slammed down hard on Loring Park
It slammed the stories
Of the boy who’s face was blown off by a bomb
Of the girl who carried her brother
On her back
Everyday
To get medicine

Into my mind

The mud splashing the misery onto my feet
As the puddles of distant pain grew deeper
They flooded the guilt of the American Individual
The guilt of having freedom
Of having enough

There were 10,000 people in Uganda
Huddled in a field, he said
He got a call and went
They escaped
A rescue worker died trying to help
She gave her life

Puddles deepening

I’m sure I could die of self obsession
Here in America
In Darfur, in Chad, in Colombia
They want to be safe
To eat food

Suffering, we all are
Some more affluently than others

We have a lot of stuff
What about empty jars without water?
They have so many over there
Got to pump it from wells
If they have a well to pump from

I never see where my water comes from
Know I get thirsty
Know what it feels like to appear full
But to be empty

If their jars were full
Would they want more?
Don’t we need more than food and water?
Looks that way, here in America
When I watch TV
When I go to college

I do
Want more
I can’t sleep sometimes
Because its not enough
The food
The water
My affluent quality of life

It’s not enough for me

Fallen, Broken
We are
In Darfur, in Chad, In Colombia
Everywhere
Here, in America

Fighting, Despairing
We are

Unconsciously attracted to life
Hoping forever is real
Rest for our souls
Wanting to know the secret
Groaning for places that sparkle
From conversation to conversation
Heaven, Utopia, Nirvana…
Begging to be given everything we need
Or acting like we need nothing

Jesus Christ says his yoke is light
Come to him; says he will give us rest
Wasn’t sure if he was just my “homeboy” a “good man”
Or a liar
Stopped believing in the cultural Jesus
Wanted to know him
For real

Truth

Use to think he wanted just the good ones
Now I know Him
Know he likes to take the ones broken, crying
Messy and honest
Like me

Says he will see us in paradise
Not because we’re good enough
But because of his mercy

I am a refugee
From sin
From guilt
From hiding
From the weight of others’ eyes
Got so heavy, I laid my burden down

Still fighting, but not despairing
Persecuted, but not abandoned
Struck down, but not destroyed
His joy is going to be my strength

His joy, His strength

A free gift he says
But I want to act like I have
A wealth of knowledge and peace
Like I understand
But I don’t
Just know it felt real dark
And I got scared that the dark would take me
I needed a refuge
A rescue worker
Who would die for me

A free gift to
Everyone who is fleeing
Everyone who wants to escape
For all of the refugees

Who have nothing left but belief

I don’t feel free because of America
Or because I can eat, go to college, and be clean
Actually, I feel heavy chains here
Maybe there are chains are everywhere…

Maybe its because we’re all sinners—
We know not what we do

Offending a perfect God
Could we admit it?
Would we?
If we knew—
We could be completely accepted
Approved of
Lavished in grace

“Forgive them, Father—
They know not what they do,”
He prayed

But dancing with him
The one who made himself poor
Who loved prostitutes, outcasts, beggars
Like me

Laying my sin upon him
Like he’s my best friend’s ear
Being made new, scars erased
That’s where I feel the most free

For what he’s done now
What joy, what peace!
I am not who I use to be…

Never thought, never dreamed…

He’s come to free me
All I am is worth it to believe
Worth letting go of the past
Worth admitting I am weak
Worth it to start over
To see him live in me
Worth it to feel this true

This free

In my puddle, I can see that
I, too, am a refugee

Homeless Child

(An Excerpt from my personal journal)
Friday, August 08, 2008
1:49 PM

Father, thank you so much that you love me and forgive me- you shed on me your grace, which I am endlessly undeserving of. God, its amazing how you reach me. Amazing that you reach down to my cold, cold, cold heart. My heart that becomes a stone so fast. My heart that becomes undesirable of the only thing worth desiring- you. God, being married has revealed so much truth to me. It has shown me so much of how hurtful of a person I can be. And it has shown me such a picture of Jesus, of how much Nick forgives me and loves me and stands by my side. God, you are growing me, slowly, there is so much evidence of grace in my life. I am overwhelmed by the grace poured out on such a sinner. Its like when vanilla ice cream drowns underneath oodles of thick, chocolate fudge. I am the drowning vanilla ice cream. Your forgiveness clothes me like thick fudge.

Lord, I have been wandering, sinking, falling away from treasuring you. I have put my hope in things I own, put too much faith in flesh and bone, lived carelessly.

I am begging you Jesus to give me new perspective. Give me a new heart, new hands, new feet, a desire to give away my life.

Father, its taking all I am not break down and cry in Caribou right now. My heart is just so broken.  So confused about how being a Christian is possible when I am such a hypocrite. And yet- this is what being a Christian is. Being a hypocrite and being forgiven for it.