Author: jdunderwood

Turn TO

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Judy is 16! Cake by Emily.

Judy is 16! Cake by Emily.

Last week I tried on a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in several weeks and discovered they were a bit tight. That prompted another thing I hadn’t done in awhile: I stepped on the scale.

It was certainly not the result I was hoping for. (By the way, weight loss is NOT the focus of this blog post.)
I stepped off the scale and thought of the week ahead of me—a week full of baking and sweets for three of my kids’ birthday parties.
Not a good week to try to cut back.
So I came up with a self-control strategy: I would wear those slightly-too-tight jeans to remind me that I needed to resist.
It didn’t work.
In fact, it had the opposite effect: I felt slightly depressed, and chocolate seemed like a good antidote. After scraping brownie batter from the mixing bowl into the pan, I eyed the spatula in my hand and the leftover batter on the sides of the bowl. I shifted my jeans with my free hand and thought dark thoughts, like, “Oh, why not? It’s not like these are ever going to be completely comfortable again.”
Today I went back to wearing my comfy, stretchy jeans.
And I had a complete change in attitude! I felt good, relaxed but also confident. Yes, you CAN say no to that, I told myself when I pulled rolls hot from the oven. You can have an apple instead.
I’ve realized there is a correlation between my tight-jeans strategy and my attitude toward my sinfulness.
I’ve been writing about my sin a lot lately. I find that the closer I grow to Jesus and the more I study Scripture, the more aware I seem to become of my own sinfulness—that it’s not just actions or even thoughts but a selfish focus rooted deep in my core.
I identify with St. Anselm, who said, “My life affrights me. For when carefully reviewed, its whole course shows in my sight like one great sin; or at least it is well-nigh nothing but barrenness. Or, if any fruit is seen in it, that fruit is so false, or so imperfect, or in some way or other so tainted with decay and corruption, that it must needs either fail to satisfy God, or else utterly offend Him.”
I don’t think I would have understood Anselm’s quote as a young believer. I used to think I was okay, not such a bad person, but now I see my faults much more clearly. And I know that as I grow older, my sinfulness will grow even more apparent to me.
I understand that Christ’s death was the once-for-all payment for my sins: past, present, and future, but how do I deal with this growing sense of my sinfulness?
The answer is this: I repent—again and again, like the first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses: “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said, ‘Repent,’ He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
“Repent”: to turn from sin and turn to God. It has TWO parts, but all too often my approach has been like my wearing the too-tight jeans last week: I stay, at least subconsciously, halfway between the two. “Oh, I see that, deep down, I am not patient. I am not kind. I am mean and self-centered, and even my goodness is NOT good—not true GOOD.” I turn from my sinfulness in horror, but I don’t complete the “turning to.” I stay in between in a state of guilt and shame.
It’s not true repentance if only do the first “turn.”
Hudson Taylor, the founder of China Inland Mission, regularly asked his believing friends, “Have you repented today?” Now obviously Taylor was asking if they had done some self-examination, if they had asked the Holy Spirit for conviction. But Taylor didn’t want his friends to stop there. He didn’t want them to mope through their days, laden down with a consciousness of their sin. I know this because I’ve read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. It took years of spiritual self-beating for Taylor to realize Christ’s finished work and CLING to the cross as full payment for his shame. He wasn’t about to suggest that his friends go down that same path. No! He knew that wallowing in an acknowledgement of sin is not good! This becomes a denial of Christ’s amazing work.
Taylor wanted them to fully repent: to turn from AND turn TO.
I have several Biblical examples that help me understand complete repentance: Isaiah was “undone” by the contrast between himself and the Holy God; Peter was crushed by the realization that he had denied his beloved Jesus; David wrote, “…my sin is ever before me” after Nathan confronted him with his adultery and murder; and the Prodigal Son said, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
Yet all four were quickly restored. Isaiah’s mouth was touched with a burning coal and moments later he was jumping up and down, saying, “Send me, Lord, send me (to do your work)!” After only a short (though very meaningful) conversation, Jesus restored Peter and charged him: “Feed my sheep.” Three verses after his proclamation of sinfulness, David asked, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness… restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” The Prodigal Son’s Father ran to him, embraced him, kissed him, and threw a party in his honor.
Turn from—fast.
Then, turn TO.
And find that GOD is turned to US.
Because of Christ, He has arms wide open, ready to embrace us and draw us into His limitless love.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9

Great Eternal Father

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Sometimes my praying is scattered. Some days my thoughts seem to jump and prayer gets lost. Not long ago I had one of those times. I was even using a verse to pray, thinking that would help, but I couldn’t get past the first line: “Great and eternal Father.”
I was about to go down my familiar road of beating myself up for being unable to focus on more, when I understood that “great and eternal Father” was more than enough. Those words—standing for the God they symbolize—gave me all I needed, both that day and forever. So I stuck with them and pinpointed my focus on my GREAT ETERNAL FATHER.
He is GREAT—all-powerful and all-good. My doubts don’t change God’s greatness. I can get hung up on questions or balk sometimes at “hard” passages of Scripture or cry, “Why? I don’t understand!” about injustices and pain, but all these problems—as I will see very, very clearly when my sight is enlightened by Glory—are with my perspective, not with God’s actions or character. Bottom line, He is great and good. No exceptions.
He is eternal. E-TER-NAL. I am fickle. My moods are upset by a headache; my values changed by circumstances; my commitments by my feelings.
He never changes.
He never will.
He is the same yesterday, today and forever. ETERNAL!
FATHER! How amazing that the GREAT, ETERNAL GOD has taken on the role of Father. He calls Himself “father to the fatherless.” He uses the picture of a mother hen who gathers her chicks under her wings to give us insight into Himself. He tells us He sings over us and holds us by the hand. He is immeasurably better than the best earthly father and so different from the worst that the word “father” is a travesty when applied to the human version. He even adds “Abba” (“Daddy”) to his title and gives us the incredible, unbelievable privilege of approaching him as a small child does a good father. In Christ He made the ultimate sacrifice so we could come to Him in this way.
GREAT and ETERNAL FATHER—that is a bedrock for my wavering soul.
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Happy birthday, twins! I can't believe they are 9! As they reminded me, this is their last year in the single digits. NOOOO!

Happy birthday, Jake and Maddie! I can’t believe they are 9! As they reminded me, this is their last year in the single digits. NOOOO!

Please, NOT more of myself!

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An hour after I posted last Friday’s blog entry about wanting “more,” I got more.

More of myself!

My brain ran a Negative Thought Matinee all throughout Friday afternoon. “Frustrations, you’re up first. Then we’ll have the Comparisons. And rounding out the program are the Complaints. We have a full show here today, ladies and gentlemen. A full show with not a single positive thought to spoil it!”

“This is more?” I wondered. “When all I see are my faults driving me to find faults in others? I am on self overload! Didn’t I just write and pray that I ‘want to walk like a redeemed person, made new and whole’? What happened to that? Ugh!”

Well, really, what did I expect? That “more” comes easy? That simply wanting it is enough? That a desire for more of Christ wouldn’t bring some spiritual opposition?

But, boy, did I feel like I was resisting the very “more” I wanted! It was yet another illustration of what Paul said in Romans 7: “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong” (NLT).

Very true. So I struggled, yet again, with my own flesh and its selfish desires.

But in the middle of my battle, God reminded me that last week I had prayed for desperation. After writing about it, I’d asked, “Lord, how do I stay desperate for You when things are going okay–when nothing really big is driving me to my knees?”

Aha! Suddenly I realized that my Negative Thought Matinee was actually an answer to my prayer!

I had forgotten how helpless I really am and needed reminding that even in the “good” times, I am completely inadequate for the tasks set before me. My wily, sinful nature cannot accomplish anything truly good.

And with that understanding I was able to stop battling my negative thoughts and simply cry out “I need you!”

And there it was—the desperation I’d asked for!

God delights in revealing my weakness to me.

This would seem cruel, except that there is MORE. He does NOT do this to make me feel horrible. NO! His purpose is to get me to the place where I cry out for Him. THEN He reminds me that His power is made perfect in my weakness, that when I acknowledge my inability, the power of Christ rests on me.

In Ezekiel 36: 9, God says, “I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, and I will cause many people to live on you—yes, all of Israel.” Another version translates the first phrase as “I am for you.”

Please understand I’m taking liberty with the textual application here. God is speaking to the land of Israel itself, but since Christ compared receptive hearts to fruitful soil, I think I can apply it to my own heart. In Ezekiel 36:9, God is essentially saying to me, “I am for you, and I WILL make you fruitful, so I will prepare you to bear fruit. I will plow you and till you and dig deep in you to plant seed. I will cause you discomfort so that you will bear fruit for others.”

If I want and ask for MORE, then I have to understand that I will be plowed. Sometimes that plowing takes the form of outward hardships; sometimes it is simply being forced to face my deep, tangled roots of sin so I will cry out for help.

So, eyes a little wider this time, I say it again: I want MORE!

More of Jesus,

Less of me.

Less of me,

More, more, more of Jesus.

MORE from the MOST

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I want more today. Not superficial, “getting through the day” more. Not more “stuff” or money or even time. I want the 24 hours, the 1.440 minutes, the 86,400 seconds I have been gifted with to be filled with MORE. I want to be more aware that I spend each of those seconds with my hand held by my Abba Father. I want to walk each step as a redeemed person, made new and whole. I want x-ray vision to see into the hearts of people instead of getting hung up on their outsides. I want more of the eternal, the true and the truly good. I want to be so overwhelmed, so wonderfilled by my relationship with my Redeemer that it shines from my face like it did from Moses’s. And I DON’T want to wear a veil.
I want more from each minute I spend with loved ones today. Heck, I want more from each minute I spend with any fellow God-creation today.
I want more from each minute, period! This minute I am eating an orange (and typing, of course). I want to get more out of this orange. I want to savor the burst of juice in my mouth and appreciate that amazing mix of tart and sweet. I want to be awed by a God who thought up such an incredible treat, packaged just right—and who likes me to enjoy it.
HE wants more for me! He didn’t sacrifice so I could meander through life and relationships and work and get nothing more out of them than an unredeemed person can.
He wants the MOST for me.
He wants Himself, the MOST High God, for me—in every minute. Now and forever! Here and for eternity.
So. I. want. more.
More of the ONE
who is the MOST of all.

I want to see

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Bartimaeus the beggar was sitting alongside the road when he heard a great crowd pass by. “Hey,” he asked someone nearby, “what’s going on?”

“It’s Jesus!” they said.

Now Bartimaeus may have been blind, but he was in the know. He had heard of Jesus.

And Bartimaeus had no shame!

I love this about him. He understood his great need, and he let go of inhibitions and the desire to please people.

“He shouted, saying, ‘Jesus, Son of David, take pity and have mercy on me!’

But those who were in front reproved him, telling him to keep quiet; yet he screamed and shrieked so much the more, ‘Son of David, take pity and have mercy on me!’” (Luke 18:38-39, Amplified version)

This past Sunday night our church held its monthly prayer/worship night. Philip, who is from Uganda, led the service. “We must realize how desperate we are for God. Only then will we really seek Him,” he said. “People in my country are desperate because their needs are obvious, as basic as food, medicine, jobs. Great needs and loss surround them. Here in the U.S., we are not so desperate for physical things. But if we want to really follow after God, we have to realize that we are just as desperate spiritually. Then we will seek Him.”

It reminded me of something I heard a pastor from Ghana say. He was asked what advice he would give to U.S. believers. “You have a decision,” he said. “Will you seek God out of desperation or devastation?”

Bartimaeus recognized his desperation. It was easy for him to: he was blind; he was a beggar.

We, too, are desperate. Appearances may testify otherwise, but Scripture tells us that without Christ, we are blind, lost, and imprisoned (Acts 26:18). We are sick and injured (Jeremiah 17:9). We are walking dead—true zombies (Ephesians 2:1).

It just isn’t easy for us to realize this in our culture. If we’re not in a place of being devastated, it’s really easy to forget that we are desperate. We distract ourselves with stuff and activities and media, and our desperation stays hidden.

But when we don’t realize our desperation, we don’t cry out. We politely ask for growth and help. We share requests and sometimes remember to pray for others.

But desperate prayers are different. Bartimaeus is a good example of that. Out of desperation he cried out! More than that, he screamed and shrieked! He was NOT going to let anything keep Jesus from hearing him. Even when the crowd “reproved (him) and told (him) to keep still, … (he) cried out all the more” (Matthew 20:31).

Jesus, of course, answered Bartimaeus’ plea for mercy and pity.

“Then Jesus stood still and ordered that (Bartimaeus) be led to Him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (Bartimaeus) said, ‘Lord, let me receive my sight!’”

Jesus will answer our pleas, too.

But we have to ask. Really ask. Desperately ask–because Jesus knows our hearts. He knows when we’re simply going through the motions, mouthing prayers, checking devotions off our to-do list.

We MUST recognize our desperation to cry out authentically. Desperation is an absolutely necessary step. All other steps follow it. Again, Bartimaeus serves as an example: out of desperation, he cried out; Jesus met him and healed him; and then Bartimaeus followed Jesus. Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52). But because Bartimaeus realized he been saved out of desperation, he saw with greater than physical sight. He knew his way was now with Jesus. “(He) began to follow Jesus, recognizing, praising, and honoring God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God” (Luke 18:43).

I often want to skip right to the following part and the praising part. I want to be a witness to others.

But an acknowledgement of desperation is a prerequisite for all of it.

God, I need you desperately—and I need to know that I need You.

Help me, please.

I want to see.

Wrestling (The guilt of simply being human, continued)

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And speaking of fighting/wrestling, here are the two boys doing just that--one of their favorite activities.

And speaking of fighting/wrestling, here are the two boys doing just that–one of their favorite activities.

Jacob wrestled with God.

If you grew up on Bible stories, that statement has lost the impact it should have.

Jacob—a human—wrestled—up close and personal—with GOD!

And here’s another thing to ponder: GOD initiated the wrestling.

This blog entry is a follow-up to “The Guilt of Simply Being Human” (2/28/13, just below this one). After I finished my snow walk, I studied Jacob’s story and realized that God invites me to wrestle, too; that, in fact, wrestling is often necessary before I can enjoy the kind of peaceful fellowship described as “dining with Christ” or “being led beside still waters.” This blog entry is simply the way I unpacked the Jacob-wrestling-God story (influenced by Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary [which, by the way, is available for free viewing at BibleGateway.com and Biblos.com]).

Up until this time of wrestling, Jacob had habitually done things his own way. He was an I’ll pray for God’s blessing, but then do it my own way sort of person.

How do I know this? His whole story tells me this. His name (which means “trickster”) tells me this.

But Jacob was facing a BIG situation; and he knew that all his wonderful trickery could not save him. Oh, he still connived, still planned, but then he cried out to God.

And God came and wrestled with him. And Jacob wouldn’t let go or give up. So God damaged Jacob’s hip and blessed him.

What? To be honest, it seems like a strange story.

I’ve heard people telling this story say things like this: God had to damage Jacob’s hip because Jacob was so strong.

Oh, no!

Jacob was wrestling with a God infinitely stronger than he (Jacob). God had the power to crush Jacob, to annihilate him.

But Jacob was also wrestling with an infinitely good God.

Jacob was not going to say, “Uncle! I give up. I acknowledge that I am human and You? YOU are God! I thought I was pretty good, pretty capable, but then I saw YOU and realized truth.”  Jacob, like so many of us, was far, far, far from recognizing this essential truth.

So God wrestled with him. He held back from using the full extent of His limitless power. He even let Jacob have the upper hand. I don’t fully understand why, but my suspicion is that this was best for Jacob. Perhaps this was the only way that Jacob would learn who God is. This wrestling was specifically chosen because of Jacob’s past and his personality type.

It seems to backfire at first because Jacob thinks he is winning.

But then God tweaked his hip—with a touch!

That was a wake-up call.

God has given us humans a lot of autonomy, and we think we’re doing okay. We think we’re capable.

But it doesn’t take much to remind us of the limitations of our humanity.

Suddenly Jacob realizes, “Oh, no, He let me have the upper hand. This is way bigger than I ever imagined. I’ve been playing with God, and He is too great to play with.”

But even though Jacob wrestled out of limited knowledge, Scripture actually commends him for wrestling with God. It commends him for not letting go.

It commends him because Jacob learned SO much when he wrestled with God.

When Jacob demands a blessing from God, Jacob learns instead who he himself is. God asks him a simple question: “What is your name?”

When Jacob answers, he realizes his own nature, because when he says “Jacob,” he is essentially admitting, “I am a trickster, a schemer, a swindler.”

But Jacob still has more to learn. Ever the comparer, always wanting to assess the situation and see how he stands, he then asks, “What is YOUR name?”

But God simply said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” In other words, do you really need to ask? Don’t you ‘get it’?

Jacob must have; he didn’t say anything else, and when God blessed him, Jacob accepted it. The GREATER always blesses the lesser in Scripture. So by accepting the blessing, Jacob was finally saying, “I give myself to You. You are God, and I am not. I am nothing like You, and I need you.”

THAT was what God wanted to Jacob to learn. So, finally, after a full night of wrestling, Jacob is ready to face the situation that had so terrified him the night before. Jacob names that place Peniel: “the face of God,” and he went on his way knowing that he carried the blessing of God with him: he now knew through experience that the all-powerful God would never fail him.

And here's how it ends (usually)--collapsed in laughter!

And here’s how it ends (usually)–collapsed in laughter!

Man, I wish I were less like Jacob. I wish I didn’t need to wrestle, again and again, to come to knowledge. But God not only knows what I need to learn, He also knows the best way for me to learn it.

And He is willing to even wrestle with me, if that is what it takes.

God wrestling with a human! AMAZING!

The guilt of simply being human

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I'm so thankful for the view out my kitchen window! Beautiful!

I’m so thankful for the view out my kitchen window! Beautiful!

Yesterday, after reading a Facebook message from someone I had unintentionally hurt, my stomach was in knots.

When I shared both the Facebook message and my guilt with my husband, he looked at me in surprise. “Jen, why do you feel guilty? You simply weren’t able to do what he needed. It wasn’t possible.”

But I still wrestled with the feeling of guilt.

The guilt of being merely human.

The guilt of thinking I should be able to do it ALL (in other words, of thinking I am like God [the oldest sin of all]).

The guilt of forgetting that I am completely incapable.

To deal with this kind of guilt, I needed a broader definition of sin than the one that defines it as intentional actions, thoughts, and words that “break the rules.” That is a very limited—and unbiblical—definition of “sin,” and it didn’t help me deal with my Facebook situation.

The New Living Translation of Romans 3:23 defines sin as “(falling) short of God’s glorious standard.”

I fell short with my friend—not because I wanted to, not even because I had another choice, but simply because I had no capability to meet his expectations. I’ve “fallen short” in some other areas as well lately, and, for reasons only God knows, He has made me sit for awhile in the discomfort of my own inadequacy, my own “falling short.” I have tried to mute the message, tried to distract myself with writing and meal prep and people and the radio, but uneasiness has burrowed into my soul, and my thoughts circle constantly around my feeling of guilt.

So this morning I took a long walk in the thick snow at the dog park. Two women were there when I arrived, but they soon left, and I was alone—with my thoughts.

Still wrestling.

Round I walked, breaking through the snow crust, doing battle in my mind, swinging like a pendulum from excuses to accusations.

On the third lap, I stopped. “God,” I said, “I want to prove myself right in this situation. I want to ‘feel’ right. And I have been doing a whole lot of talking in my own head trying to figure this out. But I can’t–because I’m not capable. I fall short—both of a complete understanding of this situation AND of any ability to fix it. I am only human. Help me to see myself—and then see YOU—as I should.”

“Please, God, I need You!”

Then, finally, rest came. I could admit my own inability, my own “falling short.” And I could glory in the fact that the God who loves me has NO limitations. He is not bound by time. His strength is unlimited. He does not run out of energy or patience or goodness. He never forgets, not ever. He never fails—not at anything He does.

He IS the glorious standard.

And He is fully aware that there is no way I can reach His standard. In fact, I think He gets tired of my thinking I can.

So when I let go of trying to reach His standard on my own, I see HIM and His grace far better.

And I am awed by the Glory!

I continued my walk, joyous now, rejoicing in the beauty, and just before I left I did what I could not have imagined doing twenty minutes earlier.

I fell back into an untouched patch of snow, gazed up at the tops of the trees, and made a snow angel!

Will work for food

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Red light. I stop, wait to turn, notice the man standing on the sidewalk beside the right lane.

His sign is crude: Will work. Need money for food, gas, home.

But his gaze is direct. And across two lanes he finds my eyes. He stands tall—not a challenge, just acknowledgment: “Yes, I stand on a street corner, I hold a sign that tells you I need help.”

I consider a U-turn, glance at my dashboard clock, estimate the time it will take me to get home to meet the scheduled repairman.

I turn left.

Drive three blocks.

Slower and slower.

I hear You, Lord.

Turn around.

Pull into the grocery store lot, stop behind his tidy old-model Taurus station wagon.

He meets me halfway.

Taller even than I’d thought.

My left hand holds out the money. He tucks it away, fast. Not grabbing, just… like he doesn’t want it. Like putting it away makes it less real.

My mind is blank. I’ve forgotten to ask for words. God bless you, I think. I offer my right hand.

He shakes it. His eyes slip above my head.

“I’m a mechanic. I can fix cars.” Urgent voice. “Do you have any that need work?”

I shake my head. “I don’t.”

“I can work. I can… You don’t have cars that need…?”

“No, but… God bless you.”

Our eyes meet again—closer now than across two lanes of traffic.

He juts his chin at me, eyes slip up again to the blue sky. “I like your necklace.”

Pressed clay, sitting right at the base of my throat, stamped firm and clear with the words “Set Free.”

Good to receive, not just give. “Thanks.”

Back on the road, the regrets. Why didn’t I say more? Why didn’t I get a name, number? He’s a mechanic. I could have sent word out through e-mail, Facebook: “Mechanic, corner of Main and Geneva: if you’re willing to take a chance, he’d appreciate it. Name, number.”  At under 142 characters, I could even tweet it. What is social media good for if not for this?!

Marketing background kicks in: he needs a better sign, one that advertises his specific skills while still expressing willingness to do odd jobs.

Stop.

Stop, Jen.

Let it go.

But this day it’s hard.

Because I’ve been set free not only from

But for.

And in the callused handshake and averted eyes, the money tucked quick out of sight, the urgent plea for the dignity of work, I felt a moment of his pain.

Through love

I am

Set free

To care.

Building a good fire

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At summer camp bonfires when I was a kid, we used to sing “It only takes a spark to get a fire going…” (Evie, 1976).

It made fire building seem easy. Light a match: done!

Not true.

Several years ago I read “Making Fire,” a short story by one of my writing friends. In it, an outdoorsy guy takes a girl on a camping trip and teaches her to build a fire.

He shows her how to set the logs up like a teepee, how to build an island of bark and twigs inside and then layer the island with dried grass. If the dried grass is brittle enough, a spark will set it ablaze. The hope is that the flames will lick the logs above into ignition while the base gets hot enough to spark the bark underneath. “Never rest,” he instructs her. “You have to keep watch, keep feeding it.”

By the end of the story, it’s clear this guy is good at building both literal and figurative fires, and if this girl stays with him, she will get burned.

Still, he is a good fire builder (he was based on a real character), and I’ve followed his instructions this winter as I’ve coaxed fires to life in the wood-burning stove in our “new” house (though I use the cardboard and paper contents of my recycling bin for kindling). “It Only Takes a Spark,” though true in its context, is not enough. A spark may create a flame, but it takes a lot more effort to get and keep a good fire going.

Fire building has a strong parallel to my faith. It took a holy spark—not created by me—to begin God’s work in my heart. He had already prepared and built up a readiness for that spark to take hold. Again—all God’s work.

But what about the “feeding” of the flame?

That’s partly MY work.

And I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in my spiritual fire-tending of late. I’m feeding it twigs and balled-up newsprint. They create spurts of flame but no lasting burn. I’m reading three books at one time—and each of them is worth reading slowly, thoughtfully. I’m doing devotions quickly, without much deep thought. I’m reading through the Bible in a year, but I’m doing it on my Kindle just before I fall asleep at night, so I’m not taking notes and reflecting on it; I’m barely keeping my eyes open for the Psalms and Proverbs. I’m listening to podcasts while I work out in the mornings—each morning a sermon from a different church. I listen to more sermons on the radio during all my commuting. This is all good stuff—but it leaves no time for reflecting. My thoughts and my prayers flit from one “small” piece of truth to the next.

It’s like I’m trying to keep the fire going with a steady influx of little stuff. It keeps the flame alive, yes, but stop feeding it for about a minute, and the flame is gone. There is no deep-burning core to keep it going. I need larger pieces of wood to do that. The flame burns into the core of these pieces, and the glow from that produces long lasting heat and a fire that is not easily put out. Eventually you have the kind of fire that ignites other pieces of wood when they are placed on it.

That’s what I want.

And to move toward that, I’m going back to the basics. I’m not saying “the basics” is the only way to combat my 21st-century, technology-fed, short-attention-span spiritual growth, but I want to focus, and when I can easily switch from my Bible reading to check my schedule or e-mail and can get sidetracked by an interesting link I see on the sidebar of Bible Gateway, it’s really easy NOT to focus. So here is my plan: I’m studying one book, reading it again and again and then slowly, verse by verse. I’m reading it in my good old print Bible. I’m going to write notes on the margins and journal with paper and pen. If I want to compare translations, I’ll just have to get out another print Bible (okay, I might use Bible Gateway for that—I love that feature). I’ll read commentaries only after I’ve studied it myself. I’m going to find some logs rather than wood chips of time for study and reflection and prayer.

I’m not going to get rid of all the other stuff (the podcasts and sermons, etc.), but I’m hoping that with a source of deep flame, the other twigs will become part of that flame, feeding it.

God is a deep, steady flame Himself (the burning bush, the pillar of fire in the wilderness, the symbol of the flame in the tabernacle that was never allowed to go out).

He wants that for me, too.

Difficult–but please read

/ jdunderwood / 3 Comments

A few weeks ago I posted that I had gotten the book The White Umbrella delivered to my Kindle and that I would write about it after I read it. Here goes.

The book is about sex trafficking in the United States: facts/statistics about it, stories about girls/women rescued from it, and testimonies of those who have worked to restore them.

It’s not as dark a book as I expected. The facts are grim; the book doesn’t pretend otherwise and shares the situation through facts, stories, and links to news articles on the subject, but I was surprised by the hope in the book. The author started a ministry, Wellspring Living, that works with rescued sex slaves. These girls have been through trauma that I cannot imagine. I read their stories and thought, “I would be crushed, for the rest of my life!”

So should they, but the girls themselves and those who work with them share story upon story of growth and new life. It may be backwards/forwards and take tons of time and patience, but as these girls encounter the God who wants to make them new, many of them grow.

After I read the book I wrote an email to its publisher, Moody. I shared much of what I wrote above, but I also had a complaint: The book is a call to action, and I WANTED to act after I read it. But since I don’t live in the Atlanta, Georgia, area—where Wellspring Living is located—I can’t really be involved in that ministry, other than by donating. What if I want to get involved right here? Do you have any suggestions?

I received a response from a woman in Moody’s book publicity department. She invited me to a luncheon hosted by Moody Church the following Monday that was about sex trafficking in the Chicago area. The speaker, Frank, is the director of Chicago’s Salvation Army’s PROMISE program (Partnership to Rescue Our Minors from Sexual Exploitation) and has worked with sex trafficking victims for more than 25 years. With the Salvation Army, he recently opened Anne’s Home, which provides long-term residential care for girls rescued from trafficking in Chicago.

So I went. I thought it would be a gathering of a couple hundred people; like they just tacked my name onto a long list: What’s one more?

No.

Under fifty people, and the group included Mary Frances Bowley (the author of The White Umbrella), Mary Welchel (Director of Women’s Ministries at Moody Church and founder of The Christian Working Woman), and an FBI agent who works with sex trafficking.

Everyone else seemed to have a reason to be there. People kept asking me: “So what organization are you with?”

“Um, none.” (Okay, I sounded a little more polished than that!—but probably not much more.)

“Oh, so why are you here?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

I was certainly there to learn—and learn I did, far more than I really wanted to.

I already knew that the FBI’s low estimate is that more than 100,000 children, usually girls, are being forced to do someone else’s sexual bidding. The age range is nine to nineteen; the average age is 11; and the average life expectancy of a girl in forced prostitution is only 7 years.

That doesn’t make you want to read any more, does it?

But I also learned this is no longer just an inner-city problem. Law enforcement agencies in Illinois are reporting an increase in cases involving middle-class suburban children because the kids have access to a computer at home and can be targeted more easily.

I don’t want to bombard you with too much info in this post, so I’ll end here, but in a follow up post, I’ll put tips for identifying children who are being sexually molested and/or trafficked and hotlines you can call if you suspect it. It’s happening far more than we want to think it does, and it’s happening closer than we can imagine. I’ll categorize this post and all follow up posts “Sex Trafficking.”

If you want to do more research, below are two addresses to check out: one is Wellspring Living’s home page, and the other is the PROMISE website.

wellspringliving.org

sapromise.org

Thanks for reading.
Jen