God has been intricately laced and in control of each detail of my entire life, no doubt, but these past 6 months have just been ridiculous... in a good way. In an overwhelming, life-giving, life-identifying way. Making things very brief, I grew up as a middle child in a middle-upper-class, southern Baptist family. By the time I hit puberty, which was 5th grade for me, I had become extremely rebellious and defiant against any form of what I perceived to be an authority. When friends spent the night, we'd sneak out. When I stayed at friends' houses, we'd steal the step-parents' cars in the middle of the night and pray we didn't get caught, despite speeding and blaring punk music.. we were barely 14 years old. I treated girls like objects starting at the age of 11. I began cutting myself when I was 12. Any time I could associate myself with middle-school-aged drug dealers and gang members, I would. I always felt cool doing that. It made me feel like I was better than other people. But inside I was about to explode. When one of those vices (an 8th grade girlfriend, in particular) left me, I wanted to kill myself. Ridiculous, huh?
Well, God was gracious. Incredibly gracious. He never let me get too deep into that crap. I somehow was rooted in Him before those things, and that Inner Identity was always going to be who I really was.
Fast forward to college. I came into college with a very serious girlfriend from my senior year of high school. Through our mutual friends, I met some of the most incredible people I'd ever meet. The first weekend at OU I met Blake Slatten because of her sister's ministry, and he is now, almost three years later, one of the few people I am 'running this race' and moving to Waco with. He is now, more than ever, spurring me on to emptiness of myself and renouncing all I have in order to be Jesus' disciple.
Anyway, after two and a half years at OU, and after having a great relationship with this girl, God decided to break us up. Right after a year of learning how to be a 'great boyfriend', and making plans to probably spend the rest of my life with this person, God decided to take her out of the picture. He was that jealous. He knew that a lot of my heart was given to her, and He wanted all of it. He wants the things we just can't give Him. So, knowing what is best for me, what I really want, and not so much what I think I want, He took me into a desert.
And I've been hanging out in this desert for 6 months.
Not that I'm not over the breakup: that wound got exchanged around the 3rd month or so. And that's exactly why I'm still in the desert... He's exchanging my wounds for His. And he used the initial wound to expose other parts of my heart that needed ripping out. Here are the words to a song that kept me from using the world's bandages to cover up what God wanted to use to speak to me:
'Don't lie to me. Just tell me something true.
Because I'm only free when I look at you.
And you look so good it hurts.
And Love, I come undone.
But don't give me medication.
Just give me liberation.
Even if it cuts my legs right out from underneath.
I don't want medication.
I want the real sensation.
Even when living feels just like death to me.
Don't paint my face. I need to see the scars
So I won't forget the back of my tutor's arm.
Because I just can't keep it straight.
Which kills and which one saves?
Because the truth is I need you
Just like the air I breathe.
Like the freight train needs the tracks beneath.
And I'd rather suffer my whole life
And be this rich man's wife
If loving you means suffering.'
Derek Webb, "Medication"
You see, He even kept me from using friends, entertainment, food, or anything else I'd tend to run to to 'get over it.' He wounded me in order to make me able to feel His heart. His heart is wounded. It's made of flesh, not stone, and it is beating and bleeding and crying for His Bride. His eyes of fire are burning after His Bride. He is calling people deeper into His places of loneliness, the places of His suffering. MANY Christians are staying in His places of blessing, enjoying salvation, 'the prosperity Gospel'- if there is such a thing, and comfort. But it is the place of most intimacy with Him to suffer with Him. And you WILL suffer if you ask for His heart. If you ask for His heart for the poor, the broken, the wounded, the widowed and the orphaned, it will hurt you. It will hurt you because to be with the broken, you must be broken. Don't think you can go out and work for Jesus. You can't be effective as a mere servant of Him. He desires intimacy with us. He wants Lovers. Lovers that go and do things because He is taking them there, not because we've heard something great and now we're going to tell everyone about it. There is no intimacy with Jesus in that.
So to make a long story incredibly short and with many holes, there you go. I don't know where this leaves me as far as what denomination I am now or what I believe about evangelism, but I'm not worried about putting a label on it. All I know is that we must become what we want to save, kinda like Derek Webb's 'Take to the World' song. We aren't doing anything by building our own kingdoms.
Love You!
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