breathe regularly

my discipleship group is doing a triathlon together in may. we talked about it tonight around the dinner table. we're probably going to break up into 3 teams of 3 people. that means, on each team, one person will swim, one will bike, and one will run. i'm going to be a swimmer.

i've done a couple triathlons before and i love them. what a monumental challenge. from a physical standpoint, it works pretty much the entire body. your muscles are built up, stretched, broken down, and built up again until you peak on race day. mentally, you have to convince yourself that the training is worth the end result. training is tough, and takes some discipline, but the high of crossing the finish line with my hands up in the air and the crowd cheering is one of the best all-around emotions i've ever felt.

then there's the spiritual side of it. the apostle paul wrote a lot about that in his letters. that is, about athletes competing in races. i didn't really get the connection until i competed.

tonight around the dinner table i made the comment, "the hardest part about swimming is breathing." it sounded rather elementary, i admit, and i got some awkward glances at the time, but i was serious. you can swim a long way if you know when and how to breath.

stroke, stroke, breathe.....stroke, stroke, breathe.....stroke, stroke, breathe

that's bilateral swimming. you stroke with your right, stroke with your left, breathe on your right side as you stroke with your right again. then you stroke with your left, stroke with your right, and then breathe on your left side as you stroke with your left. repeat. get it?

later on, someone else connected the comment spiritually. he said, "what a great word-picture." the essence is this: we're in this pool (culture), trying to be Christ's tools; He's using us to redeem culture, and the hardest part about swimming in this pool is breathing--making sure we regularly and repeatedly come up for the fresh, clean, pure air of God's presence that allows us to keep swimming.

i loved the image. i know the agony of being underwater, pushing through the current as hard as i can, and skipping a crucial breath. it hurts. and what's worse, i have to slow down--maybe stop--as my lungs squeeze out their last. going vertical in the water, i gasp deeply for air. i also know the spiritual agony of pushing full speed, only to run out of breath and need a huge gasp.

not only does it hurt, it is highly inefficient and ineffective. it's an encouragement to me to maintain a rhythmic, regular time with God. so i share it with you.

go for a walk

"at the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out." (numbers 9:23)

the context of the above verse is this...the israelites are in the wilderness after God used moses to deliver them from egypt. God has told them how the tabernacle is to be handled and moses talks with God regularly in the tent of meeting. God places a cloud over the tabernacle. during the evening the cloud looked like fire. whenever the cloud lifted from the tabernacle, the israelites would set out, and whenever it settled, the israelites encamped.

after reading this i began thinking about how marvelous it must have been to be in such close communion with God. i mean, can you imagine being moses and audibly hearing God's voice? and then to see so clearly what God's will was. just watch the cloud. up it goes, let's start walking...down it settles, let's stay here a while.

how i yearn for that cloud sometimes...not just to clearly see God's direction, but to rest assured that He is intricately involved in every decision i make. i so desperately want to be intentional about making God-oriented decisions.

craziest thing about this though is that i AM in communion with God. thru Christ, God is closer than the nearest tent of meeting. i can feel Him in my mind and in my heart, moving around, cleaning up shop...believe me, there's a lot of cleaning to do!

my experience.

this may not be how God works with you, but let me tell you how i tend to know He works with me. it has everything to do with the verse, "since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

i will feel a slight prodding of my heart to do something (take a step). it may be something as small as a hunch, but i feel it and i know i feel it. it's the Spirit urging me to do it, and i can resist (stay here), or i can act (step). if i act, i become more sensitive to the next time i'm prodded to do something, but if i resist, i become slightly more calloused--largely because i stop trusting the "hunch". it will be a little harder to feel it next time.

like a dance. the first time two people dance together, there's a lot of toe stomping (at least with me), but after a lifetime of dances, i think they'd both be a lot more sensitive to the other's movements. the slightest nudge of the hand turns into an intricate and beautiful twirl across the wood floor.

i'm hoping that after a lifetime of keeping in step with the Spirit, i'll be a lot more sensitive to its movements.

a divine balance

in elementary school there was a phase when the "your momma" jokes were the rage. i still remember some of them...

yo momma is so stupid, she returned a doughnut because it had a hole in it.

and

yo momma is so fat everytime she walks in high heels, she strikes oil!

i remember kids would bash other kids' moms and fights would break out. it didn't matter if it were in the lunchroom, the classroom, or the bathroom. i saw fights all over the place. one kid would get offended because another kid would bash his mom.

of course, as was usually the case, the kid telling the joke had never actually seen the mother of the other kid, so in truth he had no idea whether the mom was really that stupid or that fat, but still the offense was made, and the fight broke out.

i never understood why kids got so offended. it seems to me, if someone makes fun of my mom, the only reason i might get offended is if i give some credibility to what they are saying. another example, if someone called me fat, it'd be ridiculous for me to get offended because i am the exact opposite of fat. in fact, i can't gain weight. it's crazy. so i'd give no credibility to their comment...hence no offense. in fact, i'd probably laugh at them.

now put that in the light of seeking other people's approval, whether it be a girl you like, or a boss, or a bully at school. in his book, the life you've always wanted, john ortberg makes a brilliant statement (i think, at least). he says, in regards to other peoples' comments about us, "it is not another person's compliment or approval that makes us feel good; rather, it is our belief that there is validity to the compliment."

he tells the story of walking into a mental health center. "One woman there used to tell me regularly that she wanted to marry me because she could not stop thinking about my body. She was heavily medicated, had lived in the facility for twenty years, and would say the same thing to every other member of the staff. On her less lucid days she would say the same thing to plants and inanimate objects. It was an outrageous compliment...but it did nothing to enhance my sense of value as a person." He goes on to conclude, "We are not the passive victims of other people's opinions. Their opinions are powerless until we validate them. No one's approval will affect us unless we grant it credibility and status. The same holds true for disapproval."

in my opinion, this becomes utterly important in light of our identity in Christ. insults and compliments will mean nothing unless i give them weight. they will neither tear me down, nor boost my ego if i understand who Christ says i am.

and who does Christ say i am? well, i am valuable enough for Him to die for me, and sinful enough that every inclination of my heart is all evil all the time. when i hear an insult, i am anchored in the reality that my value to God is unmeasurable. when i hear a compliment, i am anchored in the reality that my corruption is to a level incomprehensible. so i should walk with confidence, not in my self, but in Christ, unphased by the opinions of others because He has given me this balance.

a difficult dichotomy

in the book prince caspian, book 4 in the chronicles of narnia series, the four children are lost in the wilderness when the youngest, little lucy, sees aslan the lion (aslan, of course, is allegorical for Christ). only lucy is able to see him. he beckons her to follow him across a most-difficult terrain of cliffs and jagged edges, but she cannot persuade the others to take the route because it is so dangerous. she tries to convince the others that aslan called to them, but because she is so young, they won’t believe her. her older sister susan is the most critical of young lucy and says very mean things to her.

eventually, after attempting several other routes unsuccessfully, the children finally take the route across the cliffs and jagged edges. as they are walking aslan appears to them one by one. when susan sees that aslan really is there, she is ashamed for being so mean to little lu.

after following aslan out of the wilderness, the lion approaches susan. she appears to be crying. expecting him to chastise her in frustration and anger, and ashamed of her behavior, she can hardly speak. contrary to expectations, aslan says to her, “You have listened to fears child. Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?”

fear is a two-sided coin. on both sides it is a protection device, but one side works for my benefit and the other for my harm.

first, the benefit. i wear a seatbelt when i drive because i fear the consequences of getting in a crash and not wearing one. in this way, fear works for my good and protects me from unnecessary harm.

on the other side of the coin, and this is the side that troubles me, fear prevents me from living life to the full. this is the fear described in the passage above from prince caspian. it is the fear that speaks when i want to do something, perhaps even feel God leading me to do something, but i fear the potential consequences of acting.

my dreams, for example. i'll be the first to admit they run counter to the “american dream”. i don’t dream of having stuff. i don’t dream of having comfort. i dream of living in a poorer place, personally engaging people, and helping meet their needs, spiritually and physically. and when i don’t pursue this dream it’s because i fear the lack of security, luxury, and stuff that i don’t dream about. ironic.

it’s a thin line, and sometimes i find myself feeling fear, and i don’t know which side of the coin i’m dealing with. do i listen to the fear believing it's for my good, or do i act despite it, believing it's counter-protective?

romans 14:23 makes a bold statement. "everything that does not come from faith is sin." (my sin just increased exponentially.) how does this relate to fear?

just today i was dealing with a fear. i was really battling with it, and i found a choice between two actions in front of me. one i wanted to do, but feared the risk. the other i didn't want to do, but it was definitely safer. i didn't know which to choose. as i was pleading for God to give me a peace about doing one thing over the other, this statement kept coming into my mind..."everything that does not come from faith is sin." it took a little more struggle before the peace came. God didn't tell me which option to choose. He told me that whichever option i chose, i needed to act in absolute faith that God would use it.

freedom!

i could choose whichever option i wanted, so long as i did it walking in faith that God was in control. how liberating!

so, i did what i wanted to do, despite the risk. i still haven't seen the result, or if the potential consequences will come to pass, but i have a peace because i did it "in faith."

employed with a purpose

tomorrow i'm starting my new job. i will be a software engineer for a******. among the other requirements of the job, i will have to travel about 80% of the time. yesterday i got my new laptop in the mail. they told me my life would be my laptop and my cell phone. mentally speaking, i know what to expect, but practically i have no idea.

when i started my previous job at c****************, i accepted the position because i needed an income. it met a need. i remember my first day. i sat down, looked around, and thought to myself, "i can do this for a couple months..." i ended up being there for 14 months.

i'm taking this job for a different reason. mind you, i still need an income, but if that was my only motivation i could have stayed at c************. i'm taking this job because in it i see potential to take huge strides towards effective mission work. what do i mean by that?

i mean, the job should help me towards my goal of full-time involvement in mission work. i do get paid more than i did, which means paying off school loans faster (huge barrier to doing missions full-time). also, i am going to be a "consultant". i'll be going into clients' offices, and finding/implementing solutions to their IT problems.

in terms of my life-plan, my vision right now has me connecting technology with missions. e-mail alone has revolutionized missions, allowing missionaries to communicate instantaneously. life magazine published a book, Life Millennium: The 100 Most Important Events and People of the Past 1000 Years, which lists Gutenberg's printing press as the number one biggest development. i believe the internet can be just as revolutionary, for the same reasons Gutenberg's invention was. the printing press helped spawn the reformation, by allowing the masses access to new ideas. used effectively, the internet can usher in a new gospel movement, allowing not only instantaneous communication with missionaries anywhere on the globe, but take the words of the bible to every nation.

for example, right now there are missionaries in very secluded areas, translating the bible into languages of people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel. if those missionaries have access to scores of linguistic experts here in the states via the internet, imagine how much faster the bible could be written!

i could go on, but let's just say i have some goals with this new job. i am comforted because i know people are praying for me in this new position, and as you're reading this, i petition you to say a prayer too. am i nervous? somewhat, but not much. mostly i am eager to see what happens.

the potential blessing of boredom

a couple weeks ago a group of people went into downtown atlanta on a friday night to bring some burgers and water to the homeless. i had the privelege of going with them. among the many people we met that night was a man...i'll call him steve. we met him late in the night (or early in the morning, really). i sat there with him, and within five minutes of meeting me he was telling me how frustrated he was to be on the streets. "it's because i do drugs." he told me. apparently he had broken up with his girlfriend three months prior, and after moving out he had nowhere to go. so there we found him, huddled in the fetal position, trying to get some sleep on a cold 40 degree night.

"to be honest with you, robby, people do drugs for different reasons. i don't do them for the same reason most people do. i'm just bored. i'll go into my hotel room, turn on the tv, try to find something to do, but it's all just so boring. life is boring. so i end up doing drugs." he explained.

i have never heard so clear an example of what clive staples lewis* wrote about in mere christianity: "if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

i'm thankful steve is bored. his boredom could easily be the tool God uses to bring him to Christ. ironically, steve's way closer to getting the point of life than a lot of people i know. he is bored because he doesn't yet know that Jesus has a purpose for him. once he realizes that God indeed has a reason for his existence, boredom will be far less likely. but remember, alleviating boredom is not the point--coming to freedom in Christ is.

* (c.s. lewis) thanks for the gentle comments, brent. ;)

shout out

my friend roy posted a blog yesterday that is more than worthy to note. check out "Take care" she said.

you should start a blog

robby: "megan, you should start a blog."

megan: "i was never good at journaling, so i don't think i'd be a good blogger."

robby: "i hate journaling...nobody will ever read what you write."

megan: "that's why people journal."

robby: "i don't get it."

less is more

i'm thinking about what this means for life...will add more about this soon.

war

as i was hiking along the coastal cliffs of italy i had to continually pinch myself. "is this for real?!" every now and then i couldn't contain my wonder, so i'd scream, "YEAH ITALY!" at the top of my lungs. trudging through the snow of the alps was ridiculously dream-like as well. the snow was about 5 inches deep, and still falling. of course, we didn't bring snow shoes, so we double-layered socks and stuck our feet in plastic bags. then we put our shoes on. the poor man's gore-tex. talk about toasty! my feet didn't get cold once.

there was something better though.

after hiking in the alps, roy, tom (a friend we met at the hostel), and i were walking back to the hostel in interlaken switzerland. all of a sudden this white streak flew by my face. it was a walk-bye snowballing!

but where'd it come from?!

we got low, not knowing from whence the next ball would come. then we saw them...two young swiss boys gathering their next rounds off the ground in the yard across the street. we had to act fast. these boys grew up in the snow. they knew how to make some darn good artillery.

we spread out. it was three against two, so we had an advantage. or so we thought.

as it turns out, roy is from houston texas, so he's about as useful in a showball fight as a bikini in a blizzard.*

whisss whisssss, the snowballs went flying by. i hopped a fence into another yard, seeking some protection. to minimize the collateral damage (cars were driving down the street through the crossfire) we eventually managed to lure them into our territory (our side of the street).

there was a big conifer tree in the yard they used as a bunker. i chased one boy around the tree a couple times until he leaped into its dense branches with a thud. i heard him moving around in there for some time. wisely, he didn't come out.

the other boy was more problematic. he was smart, and was able to inflict some battle wounds. fortunately, none were fatal, and we continued courageously. i have to give props to roy, despite his inexperience, he had a heart like rudy. no young swiss boy is going to keep him down.

the boy was hiding in the bushes in front of the house, tom went around the back to flank him as i swept in around the big conifer tree. the boy saw trouble looming over him and ran. we followed in pursuit. he sought shelter behind a wall--which would have been adequate protection had the wall not been only six feet tall and a semi-clear plexiglass material. i could see him huddling behind it and reaching over the wall, i laid a monster ball right on him. he was out for the count!

we were like the famous conquerors of the past...napoleon, alexander the great, ghengis khan. we gathered in the yard and basked in our accomplishment. it was splendid...like the hobbits after they defeated mordor in the lord of the rings.

then the old lady opened her front door and said, "you are on private property!" and several other things we couldn't understand in german.

so we quickly left. but going to sleep that night i think we all sank into our pillows with a deep sense of achievement. we had been attacked, and had overcome.

*editor's note: roy wasn't really that bad, and i wouldn't feel right dissing his snowball skills if he hadn't joked about it himself first...roy, i'm glad you had my back. oh yeah, and a 100% merino wool bikini might be adequate for a blizzard, but probably only as a base layer.

miracle shirt

i made it! nine days straight wearing the same shirt. it was fantastic. every day i'd wake up and smell the 100% merino wool miracle shirt expecting to smell myself, and every day i was pleasantly surprised. to my amazement, the rest of my clothes held their own. i actually ended up wearing pretty much the same outfit the entire trip, i changed pants once because my jeans got wet walking through the snow in switzerland. and yes, i changed my unmentionables too...but probably not as often as is socially acceptable.

you can view my pictures here. but here's a taste...