Home

"The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it." - Frederick Buechner

This morning I'm sitting on the porch, with coffee, and thinking about home. Which is a little ironic since I'm in my house. But house doesn't equal home. And the worlds that we carry around with us are so much more than the green and blue rock we live on. Frederick Buechner said it this way, “You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” My world is the others that have been engraved in my mind and heart: my wife, my daughters, my siblings, my parents, my mentors, and some who were only on my path for a moment.

Lately, I had a time of healing prayer with a friend, where I was able to receive and listen to what God is saying through circumstance: past and present. I was reminded of a time that I experienced frequently in the mountains of Arizona. Lying on a picnic bench, staring up at the vast, crystal clear, constellation, and having the strong awareness that I was in the Lord's presence; as I spoke to Him, and as He whispered His sovereignty into my heart. That's home for me. And no matter how shaky today gets, I remember the truth that reverberated through my heart on those nights. That truth is still true. The Psalmist (46) referred to that reality:

God is our refuge and strength,
a helper who is always found
in times of trouble.
Therefore we will not be afraid,
though the earth trembles
and the mountains topple
into the depths of the seas,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with its turmoil. Selah

Home (with a capital H) is now and not yet. Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom ("of God" - and in some places "the Heavens") in such vibrant ways, with (I believe) the most vibrant being the invitation for the ragamuffin disciples to pray it onto earth, and then for His commission (to them and us) to be the bringers of that reality. There is life after death, but it starts now -not after death. Maybe each step of faith we take is making us live out the reality of Home now. And maybe every difficult leap thrusts us toward to that doorstep, that while it's not-yet, it is now. Jesus whispers to me "I'm still bigger than your problems," and He is; and it's one thing to hear it, and another to walk it out - believe it - bank on it - and be abandoned to it even when everything else seems to the contrary.

My song "Dust" has been coming to my mind lately.

"...Let the moon chase the morning sun

Let the stardust ride upon the dawn

Awaken my weary eyes to see

Your sovereign plan for me...

You're calling me Home" Dust

Simply simple: part two of simple: the red pill, part five

Quaker sociologist, and warrior of peace, Elise Boulding once said:

“Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.”

After writing more complexly about simplicity, I thought I should let the pendulum fall the other way, so that I don't lose the few faithful readers that may show up at my blog from time to time. :-) Here's to all four of you! jk

Sometimes the truly simple and meaningful life is a rather complex one, as I have mentioned. That in the process of becoming simple, the journey is forged by the refinement of our heart becoming broken by injustices, making us shed the meaningless for the enduringly meaningful. And in this case (maybe all cases) that 'meaningful' is Christ. Sometimes the answer is simply Christ. An answer that, as I have mentioned previously (via Manning's The Boy Who Cried Abba), raises a million new questions.  But forgetting about the other questions, what about the answer? The answer that has led many throughout history to live meagerly, in lives of service with impacts that were anything but meager. Those who touched lives that we'll never see. Why? Jesus. The answer was simple enough.

Or how about the hot day by the lake. Maybe it was an hour or so before lunch. Maybe John was untangling nets for the next run out on the sea. Maybe he was pushing through the stickiness of the sweat on his inner elbows while trying to bury his feet in the sand so that it didn't hurt so much as he was standing bear foot on the baking ground. And as all this was going through his head, maybe he looked up and saw that Rabbi, Jesus from Nazareth. The man who he heard speak so eloquently and clearly, came up to him (smelly and all), and He said, "Follow me." And that was it. Because that was enough for John. Jesus was enough for John.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

When Jesus is the answer, it seems that the things the world offers us to medicate ourselves with just aren't as attractive. Frugality is actually enjoyable when your life is being directed purposefully toward reflecting Christ.

Just a thought...well, a few thoughts

A Place to Be Human: Meditations on community part five

As a worship leader, I want to lead others in being authentic; because I believe that when we are authentic and real (with God and each other), our worship is authentic. I fully believe that our identity as Believers is tied up in and defined by Who God is and what He's done. At the same time, I believe that only when we are willing to come to God as humans in our sin and humanity, broken, needy, and honest, is there 'worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:23). There is the 'real truth' of God that needs to break through the false truths of how we define ourselves based on our shame and brokenness, or our self-righteousness. Every week, every worship set, every day I find myself awaking to a grey and skewed version of what creation 'ought' to be, to this place that needs a Savior, and needs new mercy...possibly even more than it did yesterday.

Brennan Manning touched this deeply throughout his Ragamuffin Gospel (1990), a snippet is seen here:

The prayer of the poor in spirit can simply be a single word: Abba...In this sense, there is no such thing as bad prayer. A third characteristic of the tilted-halo gang [ragamuffins] is honesty. We must know who we are. How difficult it is to be honest, to accept that I am unacceptable, to renounce self-justification, to give up the pretense that my prayers, spiritual insight, tithing, and successes in ministry have made me pleasing to God! No antecedent beauty enamors me in His eyes. I am lovable only because He loves me (p. 83).

And in that place He bears our shame, our false self, and sees us (somehow) as who we 'ought' to be. He sees Jesus. "Somehow," that is. I don't know how exactly, but He does it. And Christ becomes our 'true' (actual) self in His eyes. Hallelujah. And because it is truly grace, we can count on it, as we pray for Him to make that revelation true and enduring to (and in) our hearts.

Back to community. Being a place for ragamuffins clothed in Christ, I believe, is essential. My friend Mike's life message is: "being a safe place." Being a 'safe place' can at first seem slightly subjective to varying perspectives (how one defines 'safe'), but in this sense I believe that 'being a safe place' is to be a place that allows the walls come down: walls of self-righteousness, of weakness, of brokenness, and even apathy. A safe place to say "yes, I am part of the grey, skewed, world that I woke up inside of today...and I need a savior (the Savior)."

In his book Life Together (1954), Bonhoeffer wrote:

The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners 

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth (p. 110-111).

Being a 'safe place' is to be a place of the grace of the Gospel, that realistically approaches the Throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16) as a Body and says corporately and in confidence: "We need Your mercy, Lord. We are in need, Lord. Abba!" And I've found that taking this message (of unconditional love), to a world of conditional love is powerful. To embody that testimony of such a love (while being honest in our failures of carrying that love perfectly), I believe, is hopeful and contagious. There is joy there. When we come to the point where we realize we don't have to perform, but be honest and laugh and cry.

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing (Zeph. 3:17)

Reference:
Bonhoeffer, D. (1954). Life Together. NY: Harper Row, Publishers.
Manning, B. (1990). The Ragamuffin Gospel. OR: Multnomah Books.

Relentless Goodness: Stacking Stones Part IV

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."
— A.W. Tozer

Another experience saturated by the presence of God, and the landmark of what He's done in my life in this past season, has been the birth of my daughter Sarah Clare. Now, as I mentioned in the previous post, we often have a misconception regarding 'redemption' in the western culture. To be more specific, the redemption of God. Redemption is not making up for bad stuff by doing enough good things to compensate for the bad; rather, I am learning that God takes the most tragic circumstances and uses it, and turns it around for good. It is not a waste, but a medium in His redemptive creativity. Like a painter it is a brush stroke in the grand picture of His love and His glory - as illustrated in the lives of those He loves. I realize that from a western mindset, this runs the danger of casting the concept of a sadistic God, but this is not the case. There are things to consider: original sin, the problem of evil, and a God sovereign enough (and with a love strong enough) to give us choice and a will. In the end, Ecclesiastes 3:11 saying, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end," summarizes the deep truth that we are so small - but have been made for something so great. Even the 'ugly' is made beautiful, and God has created us for eternity yet at the same time our perspectives are so finite that we have trouble seeing past our momentary discomforting 'ugly' situations to see the larger beautiful tapestry that is being woven. So, in essence, the stones (lessons) pulled from this season's riverbed regarding this happenstance are:

1. God is good (period). When tragedy strikes God is good (not in a pop-Christian culture-'God is good all the time, all the time God is good' kind of way, but in a real enduring kind of way).
2. When we trust Him, and abandon to Him...when He is our plan A and B...when He is the Lord Whom we look to and say "Where else could I go?" He is faithful to take the ugly, the ashes, and broken pieces, and make them beautiful.
3. It seems that God is very interested is giving life abundantly (resurrection), but in His wisdom lets us experience the incubators for life abundantly (Gethsemane, crucifixion, and the grave). We must not rush past the tragedy, but hope through the tragedies.

Those are the stones 6, 7 & 8 in my Josh 4 memorial. CLICK HERE for the post that chronicled this event.

A Lovesick Foundation: Stacking Stones Part II

A primary factor in our time on the Fort Apache reservation, that is monumental in memory of how the Lord has worked, is something that I learned in the quiet place (IHOP-Atlanta was instrumental in this reality). God desires me. This changes everything. Strangely enough, the sentiment that God loves me doesn’t do the same thing to my heart. As Rich Mullins once said, “I grew up hearing everyone tell me 'God loves you'. I would say big deal, God loves everybody. That don't make me special! That just proves that God ain't got no taste.” God is love, if God didn’t love me, He’d be acting contrary to Who He is right? Maybe it’s the way that our society today throws the word “love” around (seemingly carelessly), that God loving us (even perfectly) doesn't seem to be that great of a feat. But the idea that God desires me, that He likes me (so much that He plans to purge me of my sin), and is intimately involved in my life…that changes everything. It’s a whole new dimension of love: there’s outward emotion attached to it; it’s not just a theory. It makes it so my effort is put into understanding Him more, learning about Him and His love for me, and receiving that love, instead of trying to work harder to earn it. When I screw up, I don’t have to stay away out of fear and shame, but I can go back into His presence as a child, and He holds me in His loving Father arms. When I don’t spend time in the quiet place, I am not driven back to the quiet place out of guilt, but instead out of longing to be in His presence again. “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

So much has happened in our season of working on the reservation: tragedy, joys, victories, and defeats. One thing remains, however. We hunger for the living God, who, not just loves us, but desires for us to partner with His heart. This reality is what got us through our personal losses, aggravating moments, and hopes for the future. It’s a foundational stone in our Josh 4 monument. We’ll look back at these three years, not as a reluctant recollection, but as worshipful season, where we were crushed, purified, and challenged, but came out the other side more in love with God and each other.

Trust, Part Four: of transcendence and immanence

Manning wrote in Ruthless Trust (2000):

...We can no more catch a hurricane in a shrimp net or Niagara Falls in a coffee cup then we can grasp the infinity of God's reality. A one-sided focus on his Otherness reduces the Holy One to a cosmic observer, a distant outsider disengaged from the yaw and pitch of human struggle.
Immanence is not the opposite of transcendence but its correlative, immanence and transcendence are two sides of the same coin, two facets of the same divine reality. Transcendence means that God cannot be confined to the world, that he is never this rather than that, here rather than there. Immanence, on the other hand, means that God is wholly involved with us, "that he is living in all that is as its innermost mystery," that he is here in his mysterious nearness...Disregard of God's immanence deprives us of any sense of intimate belonging, while inattention to his transcendence robs God of his godliness" (p. 82).

In the swirl of the attributes of God, my contemplative mind gets lost in the transcendence of a Holy God who is so intimately passionate for His creation that it is often very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that He does whatever it takes to capture the heart of His Bride. He stoops low. Lower than I would if I were Him...but I suppose that is one of the characteristics of His transcendence. The lavish wastefulness of His perfect love - a love that (I suppose) is lavish due to His otherness, and wasteful due to the nature of His other[ness]-love. His transcendence becoming immanent in the object of His affection by the pure recklessness of its selflessness. Philippians 2.

Reference:
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins

Trust, Part Three: the waiting factor

I know that I'm in the middle of a series on "trust," but since the topic is pretty much synonymous, I decided to include this bit on "waiting." I wrote the following article for a prayer site that I've been developing:

Waiting is something synonymous with being human, and something that has been a muse for my creativity for some time now. I actually wrote a song entitled “Waiting” that is on my CD Depravity, Grace and Reckless Abandon. The lyrics go:

This road is dusty
And it’s getting to my eyes
So that I can’t see where I’m going
Or even the time

 But I’ll trust in You
Though it feels hurtin’ to me
And though I can’t see

 Job, Abraham and Sarah
We could talk for hours
About wishing that Your timing
Was a little closer to ours

 But I’ll toast to You
With my rusty heart
And my cup that’s full of tears

 Chorus:
Lord, I’m waiting, I’m waiting
For You to save the day

For You to hold this heart (repeat)
Walking for miles through mud and rain
Looking for the sun to rise
On a field so dry, I cannot feel
It’s as if something has died

 So I’ll wait for You
With my hands tied
So that I can feel the joy of Your touch

 And they that wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength
They will mount up with wings as eagles
They will run and not grow weary; they’ll walk and not faint
So teach me Lord…to wait

Lately I’ve been meditating on how waiting is God’s tool for developing character and fruit in the lives of His people.

::Coming to the end of ourselves::

It seems that (looking at Scripture) one common thread that ties every person to another is the fact that everyone waits.

Fact: no one (that I’ve met at least) likes waiting.

I’ve never once seen a person excited to go to an amusement park for the purpose of waiting in line. No, they go for the rides, the fun, maybe the food, but definitely for the pleasant memories. People tend to remember the fruit of their waiting, not the process itself. One may remember, “Oh, yeah, the line for that line was horribly long…but, the ride was awesome! It was so worth it!” We have technology so that we can get what we want, as quickly as we possibly can. Our food, our news, our communication (the internet, cell phones, etc.) – we live in a fast-food, information infused world with technology accelerating at an exponential rate. Things that make us wait are things that don’t survive the competitive market – the market for your attention.

It seems that this has affected our prayer lives. Maybe the truth of the matter is that many Christians (especially in the West) tend to live a prayer-less life because of the waiting. We want to talk to God, and hear from God, but don’t want to wait for the answer. The tendency has been to have mindsets of spiritual consumers, and God and His blessings are the commodities. The only problem is: it doesn’t seem that that is how God chooses to work. The consumer mindset seems to make us think that we inhabit crucial roles that God alone truly rules: Lord and provider.

In God’s graciousness, he is so kind to break us of our selfishness, when we yield to Him. The result? Trust, faith…joy. Frederick Buechner masterfully captures this in his book Telling the Truth: The Gospel as tragedy, comedy & fairy tale (1977)

And who are the few that hear it? They are the ones who labor and are heavy-laden like everybody else but who, unlike everybody else, know that they labor and are heavy-laden. They are the last people you might expect to hear it, themselves the bad jokes and stooges and scarecrows of the world, the tax collectors and whores and misfits. They are the poor people, the broken people, the ones who in terms of the world’s wisdom are children and madmen and fools…Rich or poor, successes or failures as the world counts it, they are the ones who are willing to believe in miracles because they know it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside them where grace and peace belong with grace and peace. Old Sarah with her China teeth knows it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside her where she waits for a baby that will never come, so when the angel appears and tells her a baby is coming she laughs and Abraham laughs with her because, having used up all their tears, they have nothing but laughter left. Because although what the angel says may be too good to be true, who knows? Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true (p. 70-71).

Waiting often gets painful, lonely, and desperate, but it is a landscape for a miracle. God answers prayer, and as He does, it changes us, softens our hearts, and will redeem situations that we may have given up on.

::A call to voluntary weakness::

“We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.” (Psalm 33:20)

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2)

Waiting is often a choice, we can choose to do it or we can try to concoct our own solutions to situations. However, if our desire is to see God move in power – the way He wants to – then our choice is already made up for us: we must wait. A quip that I would share in concerts before my song Waiting is, “When we wait until the last moment it’s called ‘procrastination,’ but when God does it it’s called ‘perfect timing,’ and I don’t think that’s fair. However, if I wanted what was fair, I’d be dead, because the wages of sin is death…so I guess I’ll wait…” Waiting goes against the fiber of a humanistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps society, however, it is still a tool that God uses for our transformation. Not only choosing waiting, but learning how to embrace it, is crucial for our lives – and a non-negotiable for our prayer lives. This doesn’t mean we have to necessarily enjoy the process, but we can find hope, joy, and strength in the fact that the outcome will be the Lord’s plans for us – and not our superficial solutions (which at the end of the day won’t satisfy the longings of our hearts).

Bob Sorge wrote in his book Unrelenting Prayer (2005), “Delayed answers by nature tend to cause us to lose heart. ‘Hope deferred make the heart sick’ (Proverbs 13:12). This heartsickness is a natural human response when we are waiting on God for a long time” (p. 4-5). In Psalm 130:5-6 the psalmist wrote, “I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” There is a certain longing in our voluntary weakness that does not go unnoticed by God. He answers, He is faithful, and He is changing us – and our situations – in the process. Our heartsickness and our tears are not ignored either, they are acts of worship as we choose to wait, put God first, and declare that He is Lord and our provider.

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD (Lamentations 3:25-26)

Reference:
Buechner, F. (1977). Telling the Truth: The Gospel as comedy, tragedy and fairy tale. N.Y.: HarperCollins Publishers.
Sorge, B. (2005). Unrelenting Prayer. Greenwood, M.O.: Oasis House

Trust, Part Two: the scars remain

The love of God is not a pastry - it is a meal. Or for that matter, perhaps it is the protein that makes up the food. While fame, money, self-reliance, or the many other things that we fill our lives with, may keep us going, they may substitute but cannot replace the building block for a healthy life. Sometimes western Christianity has a tendency to cast the vibe that the love of God is a garnish to an 'American Dream,' when it is so much more. Journeying beyond calorie induced metaphors, I sense more and more that the love of God is the very air that fills our lungs. Every moment is grace. Frederick Buechner wrote in his book, Wishful Thinking: a seekers abc (1973):

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you (p. 39).

As I walk through the seminary of life and repeat for the 34th time my class on Wilderness 101, one thing I can say is that I know God is good. I've experienced bad things, but know that God is good. The love and grace of God does not mean we won't get wounded, but that God is greater, and the redemption that He will orchestrate (if we let Him) gives beauty for ashes and joy for mourning.

Continuing Brennan Manning's Ruthless Trust (2000) today, I was hit by these sentences:

We are, each and every one of us, insignificant people whom God has called and graced to use in a significant way. In His eyes, the high-profile ministries are no more significant than those that draw little or no attention and publicity. On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars (p. 48).

I do have a sense (as Manning's words share) that my Beloved King and Lord recognizes my scars as worship:

• Crying out from a cabin in the White Mountains, longing to know God more - in the midst of loneliness and an unknown future.
• Moving to the East Coast with my 'life' packed into a Chevy Cavalier, not knowing anyone.
• Trusting, hoping and crying after getting the call from the hospital knowing that something went wrong with my wife's pregnancy.
• The drive to the mortuary to pick up my son's ashes the day of the funeral.
• The list goes on, but those are big ones...

The fact that Jesus walked through these times with me is hope and grace. I am known, and in ministry, He sees my faithfulness in sharing His love, not necessarily in the outcomes that I can sometimes get so hung up on. Could it be that He pays closest attention to the things that others don't pay any attention to? Affirming a young adult working to get his GED. Praying for the hearts of Jr. Highers to be open to the Gospel. Praying for High Schoolers to make decisions for a healthy future. Or praying every day to be a better husband and father. Or the other things that shall remain in the secret place...maybe that's where the most 'successful' place is: the secret place, where it is truly just you and Jesus. Where the small acts of kindness that you show throughout the day are inside jokes, delights, and victories known only and discussed only with the Creator who slipped under the radar to die for His creation...

Reference:
Buechner, F. (1973). Wishful Thinking: a seeker's abc. NY: HarperCollins
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins

Trust, Part One: the lesson we keep learning until we die

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God (Nouwen, 1997).

One of the reoccurring reads on my bookshelf is Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God (Manning, 2000). This book was given to me by dear friend Jay the Pauperly Prince (sometimes it's 'Princely Pauper' depending on the day :-) the Christmas of 2000. Jay is a true ragamuffin like me. Every year I find myself back in this book contemplating trust, my life, and how no matter what happens in my life, the issue I return to is trust. For that reason, I've decided that trust is the lesson that we keep learning until we die: literally, and metaphorically spiritually. I do wish that it were one of those things that you just pay your dues on and move on to the next lesson, or 'level' (if the video game metaphors work for you). I've learned that no matter how good my negotiation skills get, I can't seem to convince God that I don't need anymore object lessons on the subject. However, as masochistic as it may seem at times, I am learning to enjoy this 'dance' in the wilderness. Manning writes, "Uncontaminated trust in the revelation of Jesus allows us to breathe more freely, to dance more joyfully, and to sing more gratefully about the gift of salvation" (Manning, 2000, p. 30).

I guess what I'm saying is that it's alright with me. The tragedies that we experience are ok - it hurts, but it's ok. The unknowing, blindfolded existence of following this invisible God, is ok. The result outweighs the momentary discomfort. I have a propensity to make sense of things and to be in control of my future, and realize that those two areas cannot be non-negotiables with me if I claim that Jesus is Lord. I'm learning to surrender in every sense of the word (to yield to the power of another, to give oneself up, etc.). I'm learning how to (as Manning puts it) breathe, dance, and sing, the way that I have been created to. Fortunately, living as a missionary right now, my daily life is an incubator for these lessons, and lately the incubator has been burning so hot that it's been burning out the dross (sorry for the mixed metaphor - I realize that it's slightly paradoxical, since incubators help things grow, and the process of metal purification is to destroy. *destroy impurity, but still. I'm sure you can see that it all works together...).

Finally, Manning wrote:
"To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness" (2000, p. 37).

"So, thank you Abba, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, for every twist and turn, stone and thorn, mountain streams and dried up river beds on this journey. I do believe that it is all worth it considering the Prize. Thank you for whispering Your sweet affections of reckless love toward me this morning. Please, in Your grace, continue to draw me close to You, teaching me to breathe more freely, to dance more joyfully, and to sing more gratefully about Your gift of salvation. Amen."

Reference:
Manning, B. (2000). Ruthless Trust: the ragamuffin's path to God. NY: HarperCollins
Nouwen, H. (1997). Bread for the Journey. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco