Of Oceans and Nalgene Bottles: Remembering to Remember Part 3

For all practical purposes I was going to try to remain in chronological order. Now I'm not...and I hope that that doesn't mean that I have ceased to be practical. For urgency's sake I'm going bust into realtime here briefly. Yesterday morning I woke up with the phrase, "God is an endless ocean" going through my head; which took me back to a time a couple of years ago.

I was on a plane flight (Frontier Airlines), and I was sitting in the numb flight existence when I had a picture in my mind's eye of a man in an ocean. He was out there in this vast expanse of water and he was holding a nalgene bottle. Then I pictured the man taking his nalgene bottle and scooping it full of water. Then he held up his bottle and yelled, "I have the ocean here!" The picture was sort of ludicrous when I thought about it. Here you have this man in the ocean and he arrogantly holds his bottle thinking that the ocean was something that he possessed. At the realization of this picture I heard God tenderly speak, saying, "This is what people try to do with me. They try to bottle me and strut saying 'We've got God here' when really all they have is a bottle of salty water! They are swimming in the ocean, but they won't lose themselves in that realization." I sat in awe, and a little broken for the rest of the flight; knowing full well that I have done this. I have tried to confine God with my finite mind, and still have a habit of doing again and again if I'm not careful. Lately I've been swimming in the mystery of God. Yesterday I led a devotional worship set at where I work (IHOP-ATL), and right before I wrote a song about it, saying:

Ocean Deep
By Joel Bidderman (c) 2005 Joel A Bidderman

Tossed and turned
I look at You through crooked seams
Found swimming
I splash around You loving me
So caught and known
A thousand hopes drawing me deep
Deeper than I can see

Your love
Is an ocean deep and strong
Your mercy
Like a river fierce and long
You've captured me in this current's mystery
As I am losing me
...in the deep

Torn and worn
Reconciled to You and me
Grown and sworn
Where else on earth would I go?
Drowning
In the deep the dying me
Finds life in Your sovereignty

God is an endless ocean. Deep. Strong. Wide. Long. Commanding and can't be commanded. Have you ever gotten lost in creation? Not like taking a wrong turn during a hike and being turned around for a few extra hours. I mean: have you ever lost your imagination in nature. I do it whenever I look at the ocean. It's just so stinking big that I can't wrap my head around it. The oceans that way for me. It's been raining a lot here, which for this Arizona mountain boy is awesome because I'm used to the biting dryness...and now in Atlanta it's moist like Marble Cake (it was the first moist thing that came to mind). Yesterday I stood outside with light rain coming down, and felt the infinate impact in my finite existence. Not just that water was flowing from the sky, which in itself phenomenal, but that the One who made all of this and me scandalously loves me. It's a love so deep that all else is fading away.

Let go of your nalgene bottles and enjoy the sea.

Wet Knees and a Fresh Heart: Remembering to Remember Part 2

I don't remember too much from my childhood. Maybe it's due to my car accident that I had when I was 18...or maybe life just moves that fast; so fast that I can't really tell much difference from today and when I was 8. But certain things pop into my head: Christmas time with a dark room and a glowing tree, that always made me think that if Moses saw it it would give him flashbacks; or GI Joes; Indiana Jones; the terror of running over a snake on my bicyle; climbing trees and playing capture the flag. My foremost question is not "Where has time gone?" but "Where have I gone?" The preppy Jr Higher, has grown old and now and even has a silver hair on the left side of his head. "Man is but a vapor" is what the psalmist says.

One thing I can't remember from childhood is when I exactly first received Jesus. I've always felt like He was a part of my life, and significant times of soul searching and relational bantor tapestry my mind. Emotional jumble of raising my hand for a prayer, talking to God in church services and feeling like He talked back, and His hand somehow held me when I was quiet and alone. It's all run together really.

The first notably gut quaking experience was in High School. I was in a Mormon populated town, and lonely. I don't remembering ever liking high school. I had a few friends and they were cool. I made some bad decisions, hung out with some people who made some bad decisions, but it helped me to develop me. One day though things were bad. I felt the weight of everything on me that morning. Some relational things were happening in my life and I was broken...and to make things worse I was late for the beginning of school. As I rode my motorcyle into the parking lot I heard the bell ring. Knowing that this made for another tardy, my heart sank. For sometime whenever I prayed I felt God say, "Give me everything." I actually sort of avoided prayer because of that. I'd pray for something and God would say back, "Well, give Me you." But this morning things were bad...I was wrecked. So, as I jumped off my motorcyle, I walked across wet grass (wet because it had been raining) I said a quick prayer. As I dragged my weak self accross the lawn behind the school, I heard the voice again...but this time contrasted by my weakened state, I heard it even louder: "Joel, give Me everything you've got." This time I was desperate. I stopped dead in my tracks...and in the wet grass I hit my knees, and gave it all up. Everything. Every relational battle, every desire, hope, dream, failure, and victory. Over the years I took a lot of it back, and developed a habit of giving it up again. But that was the first time. The hopless morning on the wet lawn, just me, God and my new heart.

Remembering how to remember: Part 1

Recently I've started to read a book by my favorite author Frederick Buechner. The book is called "A Room Called Remember," and is introduced and themed around a dream that Buechner had. In a nutshell (that is"summed up," his actual dream did not take place in a nutshell) his dream plotted that he was staying in an incredibly euphoric hotel room but when he left it he found that he couldn't find it again. He went to a front desk and explain his predicament and the room, and the person at the front desk knew exactly the room he was speaking of, and he told Frederick that all he had to do was to ask for it by its name. When Frederick asked the attendant what the name of the room was, he was shocked to find out that its name was "Remember." The book is a weaving together of his personal experiences, thoughts, and scripture. It really is a good book by a deep author so I highly recommend it.

The title of this book hit me because I feel that God is calling me into a season of remembering: remembering His faithfulness, how far I've come, and where beyond all my bumbling He is leading me. This season, I feel, is not just a time of remembering His faithfulness, but a journey of remembering my scrapes, bruising, and late nights of crying out along the way. Certain moments exist in my life that have had defining moments...momemts in which I knew I would never be same. Little moments of serendipity, or even tragedy, or both. Moments that carry with them the weight of the world at the same time as the universe quaking reality that I am chosen and loved by the Creator of the universe. It's the all encompassing moment where it all hits you at once with a quaking in your gut, the well of tears in your eyes, and a longing in your heart where you feel that it's broken and in love at the same time. These moments, I believe, that if we remember them, we'll not only remember the faithfulness of God, but also who we are.

So I'm stretching forth my hand to God as I trust that what follows is not a fool's undoing, but instead a scandalous affair. Feel free to walk into my Room of Remember with me with the disclaimer that I don't know the full weight of it, but I hope that it will take us into the next present moment of God's grace.