I see your eyes flitting to the corners of your world. Even while you sleep. You search. Your mind pulses ceaselessly like the tic tic tic of some intense metronome. You reign over your body. Sleep. Discipline. Exercise. Exercise. Sleep. And your body reigns over you.

I'd like very much for my tears to fall together like some healing balm. I'd like to learn the art of war and use it to slay this monster. I'd like my whispers in the dark to lift this spell.

For years my friend, my close friend, my precious friend, has walked taut underneath her tormenters: anxiety, depression, heaviness, like a thick-stroked question mark carved out beside all her reasons to live. She walks this line, taking her world in 10-calorie sections, and counting her days like the ‘stride stride stride’ of her morning run. Once, she told me not to worry, that she still weighed more than she did at her worst. Dark silence. Worst pronounced like a euphemism for best. This is a construction that seems to hold the world together. Barely. Like glue made from flour and water.

She loves Jesus. And still this darkness. She’s raked the corner of him begging for release. And still this. Sadness.

But there are true things. For my friend, the presence and love of Jesus are palpable. I see her returning, rubbing grace into her skin like lotion in the wintertime. Jesus knows about our suffering. “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do…” (Hebrews 4:15) and he loves us like nobody else ever has loved us.

Lots of times in our lives, we are asked to wake and walk beside hurt. We might excuse ourselves because we are helpless. We might accuse God because he is not.

And then. And again. We call up to remembering. We rub grace into our skin. And let true things fall on us. Like heavy kisses on our ceaseless, flitting eyes.

Em

So, I was sitting with a friend of mine the other night, just talking about work, when he leaned in and asked me quietly, “Hey, do you remember meeting Emily?”

Two things:

1. Emily is not her real name.
2. She has dizzying eyes and a hypnotic smile, and I most definitely remembered meeting her.

“I thiiiink so,” I said, pretending to have to reach deep into the recesses of my memories. “Why do you ask?”

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, grinning, “but she’s been asking about you.”

My attitude somersaulted. It’d been a rough week; I was pretty depressed, and wasn’t feeling like the most likeable guy. But, this! This was news! A girl liked me! And not just any girl, but a nice, pretty, smart girl! And I kept trying to play it cool–but I’d think that anyone with a functioning brain noticed my laughter came a little easier, my energy spiked a little higher, and my conversation shined a little sunnier.

It’s a little pathetic, maybe. I’d like my self esteem to hinge on something more stable than being the object of a crush, and I was–after my initial high subsided–embarrassed. What am I? Some sort of needy attention-hound?

These were the thoughts I related to a friend of mine later, expecting him to only affirm my contrition. I figured he’d say something like, “Smart thinking, Joe. Way to be a man.” But, to my surprise, he interrupted me mid-sentence, with this: “Don’t go down that road.”

And then he gave me this little line, from Isaiah 62:12:

They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.

I was experiencing the thrill of being sought-after; something so ingrained into our humanity that God gives it as a name to us, the redeemed ones. If this life is just a dim reflection (1 Corinthians 13:12), then there is no shame in recognizing the value in being desired.

The only question, really, is why I’m not feeling that way more often.

Joe

I find comfort when people of great faith seem utterly confounded by God.

Elijah seems about as spiritual as it gets. He does battle for the Lord Most High. He calls down fire from heaven. He taunts the prophets of Baal. He douses his wood with water and never doubts God’s power to destroy anything and everything that God wants (1 Kings 18).

But a chapter later, we find Elijah alone, having journeyed 40 days and 40 nights fleeing for his life. He’s not doubting God. He thinks he has a pretty good handle on who God is. “What are you doing here?” God asks him.

“I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty,” he answers. “I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too” (1 Kings 19:10). To paraphrase: “What do you think I’m doing? I’m following you when no one else will. When no one else gets it. And now you’re going to let me die.”

I can relate. Not so much with the whole being faithful thing, but I can definitely relate to thinking God was one way and having him turn out to be another. Like Elijah, I’ve got a pretty good handle on God’s wrath and power. I was raised by a single father, and I fight with God like I fought with my Dad. The fire and brimstone I understand.

But then God called Elijah out of the cave and told him he was going to pass by. First there was a windstorm, then an earthquake, then a forest fire. All these awesome, powerful, Charlton Heston-type things, but God’s not in any of them.

And then there’s “a gentle whisper” (vs. 12). And that’s God.

It surprises me as much as it surprised Elijah. It turns out that Elijah wasn’t alone. Although he had a very real experience of an aspect of God, he didn’t quite have a handle on the Almighty.

There’s something telling me I don’t either. And that something sounds something like a whisper.

Sam

Anxiety. Her corruption thrills me like the rebellion of teenagers. I want her friendship like I wanted that of the glamorous, crazy girls in high school. Regardless of her false promises and empty smile I crave anxiety because with her, I feel alive. She says:

What are you doing here?

You need to get out.

She keeps me running and chasing for meaning and purpose. And somehow, no matter where I move or what job I have, I still always need to get out. A humid summer night makes me miss the cool desert breeze. The first crisp snowfall forces me to remember another year has past.

Without God, life is only what I make of it. So I’d better make a long list of things to do before I die–and get to it. Because I am nervous that I’ll grow old and look back with a long list of regrets. What I could’ve accomplished.

“…there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite…and they think only about this life here on earth.”

Philippians 3

If I don’t harness these anxieties–if I let them rule my emotions, my energy, my care–then I show myself to be fighting against God. Against the God I want to worship and to serve. Against the very God who was good enough to show me that my life is short, and who wants me to use that passion to love him more. The God who saved me from an otherwise drifting existence and gave it meaning. I am anxious because I write these lists. Because my hope and ambitions are outlined by what I can do on Earth.

“ …We are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives…” Philippians 3

Help me remember where I’m from.

June

The thing I never expected was not wanting to have sex.

There’s this classic horny-Christian-dude’s-dorm-room thing where guys say “When I get married, we’re just gonna have sex day and night, like 6 times a day. At least.” And I knew that was completely false, simply because, well, I couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to have sex six times a day with these guys. Just didn’t seem likely.

But wanting an orgasm and wanting sex aren’t the same thing. I may very well want an orgasm six times a day, but in my marriage, I found sex to be an extremely vulnerable, emotionally intimidating and overall exhausting activity.

And I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. My sexual experiences up to the point of my marriage consisted of pornography, masturbation and guilty back-seat fondling with girlfriends. Everything was focused on my God-given and quickly distorted desire to have an orgasm.

But in marriage, sex isn’t just the reward, it’s part of the work. Sex is a point of union, and there are times when you don’t want to talk to your spouse, let alone make love to her. The Biblical requisite to have sex seemed unnecessary before I was married, but now I see its importance. Sex is often sacrificial, and that’s not what I wanted it to be.

So I’m working on this one: “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her...” (Ephesians 5:25). As my wife and I work to grow closer sexually, I see the fruit of that work – a mysterious, blossoming oneness (Genesis 2:24-25).

And for those of you who aren’t married, don’t think that your potential spouse is going to be the thing you’ve been fantasizing about.

She’ll be something better. Something real. Something worth working for.

Sam

“I just feel like you have to ignore huge parts of the Bible,” Kate told me. “You guys have to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to obey.”

It was about 3am, and we were driving down a long stretch of the middle of nowhere. Everyone else was asleep in the backseat, and Kate had offered to sit up front and keep me company. Still, the conversation had drifted to why I’m a Christian (“Because I think it’s true”) and why she’s not (“I don’t believe in God”). She said she respected my decision, but she didn’t respect my selective obedience.

And, I get it. I really do. Even though I have a fairly sound theological framework for why I live the way I do, and why I feel safe wearing denim although Leviticus expressly forbids it (Leviticus 19:19) I don’t think there’s an honest Christian out there who hasn’t cringed at some of the Bible’s wanton violence and bizarre laws.

So what was I supposed to say? Should I have launched into my three-point doctrinal argument for Christ’s fulfillment of Old Testament Law culminating in his sacrifice which resulted in a much better law? Which takes an in-depth reading of several passages of the Bible (although it is sort of summed up in Hebrews)?

But then, supposing she asks why I still try to follow some Old Testament laws but not others? That would put me in a spot that I’m not entirely prepared to defend.

The fact is, there are a lot of mysteries when it comes to obeying God, not the least of which is what to do with Leviticus. I don’t like thinking of it as “picking and choosing” which parts of the Bible to obey, but I understand if my life makes it look like God is confusing sometimes. When it comes to obedience, I’m doing the best I can–trusting his grace for where I’m getting it wrong.

So I just said, “I don’t have the whole Bible figured out. But the Bible has me figured out.”

(Cheesy, I know. But it’s true.)

Joe