Closer

Last week I visited the Lanier Theological Library in Houston for the first time. And let me tell you, I was in book nerd/bible nerd heaven. The smell of old books to me is intoxicating (go ahead, call me weird), and there were hundreds of them. And I just about died when I saw the C.S. Lewis collection. It was a struggle for me not to scream in my typical over-excited teenager squeal when I saw all of his handwritten letters on display in a library where you are supposed to keep everything to a whisper. Honestly, I was the epitome of giddy.

As my friend Lauren and I perused the library, utterly in awe of its magnificence, we stumbled upon some artifacts on display.  The artifacts dated back hundreds of years, some even back to the time when Jesus walked the earth.

"I know it's a stretch," I said to Lauren, "but what if Jesus actually touched one of these pitchers, one of these bowls? How cool would that be?"

"It's almost makes you feel closer in a way," she responded. "It's something tangible from his time, something we can actually grasp and feel. It's hard to describe, but it just makes you feel closer."

And it made me think about how we all crave that feeling of "closer". If we could just see God in the flesh, touch His hand and audibly hear His voice, then we would feel closer. Then we would really know He's there. We crave the security that tangibility offers us, and sometimes it's really hard for us to wrap our minds around a God we can't see or feel.

We get so caught up in searching, so caught up in trying to do more and be more so we can get to God, we forget to be still and see that He is right in front of us and all around us. He meets us where we are- there's no searching, journeying or working to find His presence and attain salvation. He is right here. And He wants you to receive Him and allow His Holy Spirit to bridge the gap between you and Him. He wants to close that space, to abide in you and you in Him. He wants to provide for you that need to be "closer" until the need is filled by the life of Jesus poured into every crevice of your soul, every fiber of your being.

I invite you today to lay down all your efforts to work for your salvation, all your efforts to journey to God. God hasn't called us to trek towards Him and work to find Him. He stands right in front of us with open hands calling us to open our hearts, to allow Him to meet us where we are and drench our souls in His grace. This is the "closer" we crave. And he has come to fill it.

When I Grow Up...

I've come to the age where I'm starting to make what the little kids I babysit would call "grown-up choices." I'm enrolling in college. I have a job. I'm having to manage my time and money more on my own. And in about 16 days I'll embark on the "golden" age of 18, the age envied by every child in a hurry to grow up, the grand age of independence. It's all a little scary because the question we were all asked as children of "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a question I'll soon have to answer. And in all honesty, I have no idea.

Yesterday as I was babysitting, a paleontologist came on the TV screen to talk about dinosaurs and digs and all the things paleontologists do that kids find fascinating. I looked over at little four year-old Audrey, who was intently watching the screen, and asked her if that was what she wanted to be when she grew up. She responded no.

"Well," I asked her, "What do you want to be then?"

"I want to be Audrey." She responded with confidence.

I was expecting anything but that answer. A ballerina, an artist, a doctor. Anything. But instead she responded with the best possible answer: herself.

I feel like so often I get caught up in who I want to be that I forget who I really am. I forget that God fearfully and wonderfully crafted me out of the dust into His beloved creation. I forget that He is using me right where I am, and that he'll lead me where I'm meant to be. And I forget that I don't have to focus on creating my "perfect" version of me, but rather be rooted in my God created identity.

In those moments where I find myself despairing over my future, I hear God saying that He already has it written out. He calls me not to worry but rather to receive Him in this moment and trust that he has plans to give me a hope and a future. Daily He unwraps a little more of who He has created me to be and shows me just how much He truly treasures who I am. He has crafted each of us as jewels in His hands, and I feel like His heart breaks as He watches me be critical of His creation, of me. There is so much peace that comes in resting in our God given identity in this moment and trusting that daily He is shaping us according to our individual kingdom callings.

The crazy thing about trusting God with our identities is that as we trust Him more, we find that we look less like ourselves and more like Jesus. When we accept Christ into our hearts and die to ourselves, we find ourselves being molded more and more into the image of Christ. While we will never be perfect, we become more Christ-like and find that is where our true identities lie, in Christ. As I journey deeper and deeper in the search for myself, somewhere along the way I lose myself and find Christ. And in losing myself, I find who I was meant to be: a daughter of the Lord and a reflection of Christ.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Not a psychologist. Not a missionary. Not an author or any of the other dreams I've conjured for my future.

I want to be me. Purely and simply me. The me that God has created me to be, the me that looks less like myself and more like Jesus. And I think that's that best thing anyone could want to be.

My Declaration

At the beginning of the school year, I was assigned to write a personal declaration of independence from something in my own life that I had grievances against. I felt it pressed on my heart to declare my independence from sin and my dependence on Christ. Reading over it again, I was reminded to press harder into Christ and be completely dependent on Him daily. And I'm hoping these words might serve as a catalyst for others to make their own declaration as well.

{My Declaration}

Having been caught in the snares of the supernatural strikes against my soul, I am left no choice but to make a desperate declaration of independence from the sin that suffocates me. Since birth I have been in bondage to a darkness not of this world that has invaded the ill-guarded territory of my heart. I refuse to be a slave any longer to this insatiable master of sin. I not only declare, but demand my independence.

I proclaim that my life will be a declaration of the promises straight from the mouth of the one who embodies Truth. His life giving words will be etched into my heart so that the unwavering truth of my freedom will be self-evident to every fiber of my being. No longer will I be pressed under the heavy thumb of an all-consuming darkness; rather I will be wrapped in the life-giving light that is my Savior and Creator. My identity will never again be broken, forgotten, insufficient, and unloved. The identity to which I've been entitled under the authority of grace is redeemed, beloved, restored and set apart. 

Daily sin has beleaguered me in a relentless pursuit. Until this day of my declaration, sin has severed the relationship with Christ I was destined to obtain. Sin unswervingly served as the opaque veil that stood between my savior and me over the course of my life. The remedy prescribed since the beginning of time has been the sacrifice of perfect blood to atone for the wrongs to which I've been enslaved . But my blood runs thick with impurities that invalidate the sufficiency of any sacrifice I could offer. God looked at me in my broken and tainted condition and had compassion on my heart which He fearfully and wonderfully formed. Deeply loving me and the rest of the sin enslaved world, He sacrificed the only person whose blood could ever rightfully atone for sin: His son. The formula for the remedy to my seemingly incurable maladies was God in flesh sacrificed on the altar of a rugged cross. He paid the price I deserved to pay for my sins and bled the blood that was I supposed to bleed. And he was resurrected to life so that I might walk in newness of life with Him, free from the snare of sin. His remedy is purely and simply grace. And He offers it to anyone who would receive it. 

The grave could not hold Him and death itself could stop Him. And He has set me free that I might proclaim these grievances against sin so that it would no longer serve as my feeble crutch but rather so my dependency would lie solely in Christ.

Sin sucked the marrow from my bones and made me void of any true life.

Sin bound me tightly in chains that wore calluses on my soul.

Sin made me feel as worthless as the dust from which I was created and to which I will return.

Sin stripped me of my God ordained identity and eroded me to the core.

Sin robbed me of every ounce of self worth until I was no longer a diadem in the hand of the King but rather the remains of useless ashes.

I have pursued every mean of action to rid myself of the effects of these grievances listed. I have performed every good deed, I have worked myself till exhaustion and explored every logical method in the world. I pushed myself into the ground trying to earn my own salvation, and I was never enough. Everything I did only amounted to a pile of ash and a desperate, empty heart. In my moment of desperation, there was only one thing left to do: to receive the grace that is more than enough to sustain me and redeem me from the pit. No longer am I caught in a vicious cycle of aimlessly attempting to save myself. I declare that I am free from sin and that darkness has no power over me. My independence from sin also serves as my declaration of complete dependence on my Savior. I will walk the straight and level path paved for me by Christ, and rejoice unfettered by any malicious maladies.