It is your heart that gives your words their meaning.  Someone with a pure heart produces good fruit — good kingdom deeds and kind, lovely, powerful words season after season.  –Matthew 12

Sometimes the only way to get there is to surrender the things we think we can’t live without. Here are the artist’s thoughts on this.

I always wanted to be one of the popular kids. I watched the popular girls closely enough to know exactly what it would take: I needed Guess Jeans, a jean jacket, and a couple of Izod shirts to layer on top of each other. A Swatch watch, straight blond hair and parents who would let me stay out late wouldn’t hurt, either. But none of that ever came together. In the end, I was happy enough to be the kid who got along with everyone and who quietly went about her business.   

As I got older, I realized that changing how I looked in order to be popular probably wasn’t going to fit my genuine interests and gifts (I played the pipe organ and loved algebra, after all). And a funny thing happened. As I got more comfortable in my own skin, other people got more comfortable with me, too. As I became secure enough to show people my heart, they wanted to be part of my life. And I’m still a work in progress – still learning who I am and how to live it out.

There is an attractive beauty that clings to people who are authentically themselves. We’re attracted by their quiet confidence. We’re attracted by their joyful clarity about life. We’re attracted by their kindness and generosity; because they’re secure in themselves, they can pour themselves out for other people. We want to be like them.

The same can be said for churches. Of course we want to be the popular church.  We want the big youth group. We want to be known in the community for our effective service and outreach. We want to be respected and admired because we’re growing and affluent. And churches are like people: you can change what the program and worship looks like, but it is what’s on the inside that really matters.  Churches that know who they are and are confidently living into it will have an attractive beauty that others want to be part of.

Here’s the attractive beauty that I think people are starving for: people these days, just like in Jesus’ time, are dying to be loved and to be taught how to love.  People are starving for others who have gone to the deep places of faith and who can guide them there, too. People are parched for authentic community, where they and their kids are loved and treasured, even when they’re a mess. People are aching for opportunities to pour their hearts, their energy, and their resources into the world, where they can die to themselves and really change the world. Churches that have these three: deep, joyful connection with God, compassionate love for each other, and challenging and rewarding service in the world, will be the churches with that attractive beauty that calls people home.

Death is all around us.  We see it in nature since for all live things, continuing to live requires food.  Eat or be eaten.  We see it as we say goodbye to our friends and as our loved ones die.  We see it in ourselves, as we acknowledge the stiffening of our joints, feel our hearts skip a beat (and not for joy), and know that from the moment of our births, we are dying. 

 But death isn’t just physical.  We all face death every day, in large ways and small.  We grieve the fights and grudges that darken our days.  We suffer when our gifts and abilities, the best we’ve offered in our life’s work, are rejected.  We rage in frustration when our hopes and dreams are thwarted. 

Perhaps the most universal and daily way that we experience death is in loneliness.  We are all lonely sometimes.  In the words of Sting, “It seems we’re not alone in being alone.”  If it weren’t so tragic, we could laugh at the irony.

We are lonely as we wonder if anyone really loves us.  We are lonely as we realize that no one  truly knows us, any more than we truly know anyone else.  We are lonely as we realize that we don’t even really know ourselves.  Loneliness steals our identity.    

Here’s the thing:  You are not alone. 

Whatever your suffering, you are not alone.  There is One who has gone before you.  There is One who has experienced the worst that death has to offer, and who has broken the power of death.  And this One, this Jesus, this man who was also God, loves you beyond belief!  Jesus took on the suffering of the world. Jesus surrendered to death  because he loves YOU that much.

You are not alone.  We often talk about Jesus like he’s not in the room.  But he is. 

 Jesus walks with you in your darkness.  Did you know?  Your darkness won’t last forever.  Jesus has already won the battle.  Light is already pouring in.  Jesus is right now filling you with life.  Love is surrounding you.  Jesus is covering you with the power of his kingdom.

You are not alone.  In your crying, in your dancing, in your boredom, in your gladness, in your loneliness, you are not alone.

A while ago I picked up a book about communicating with your spirit guides.  I’m curious about how other people pursue their spiritual lives.  I learned that some people leave little bits of food out as offerings for the kitchen and garden fairies. I learned that as the author meditates, she imagines herself crossing a bridge into a beautiful meadow.  In that meadow she has constructed the house of her dreams.  It might be simple or it might be elaborate.  It contains whatever furnishings her heart desires.  

 There was also a section about communicating with angels.  Turns out that there are lots of classes of angels, each of which has certain jobs (like healing, or bringing wisdom).  Each class corresponds to a certain color and gemstone.  One of the themes of this section was that angels are there for our benefit.  According to the author, they are delighted to help us in our lives, so we should be specific and ask big.

I’m currently reading another book on angels for my D.Min class on death and the afterlife  (No Ordinary  Angel:  Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus by Susan R. Garrett). I can’t recommend this book highly enough.  It’s a look at what the Bible says about angels, what anceint cultures said about angels, and what contemporary culture says about angels.  And then the real point — what does all this angel talk have to do with Jesus? 

Dr. Garrett draws the contrast on page 36:

“The self-help angels say:  BE SPECIFIC AND ASK BIG.  But Jesus says of Paul:  “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16).  To us Jesus says:  “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38).  When we take up the cross we commit everything we have and are to the quest for God and God’s righteousness.  The self-help angels serve individual wants and desires, and make no demands.  They urge us to ask for their aid in getting what we think we require.  But the crucified and risen Jesus heals us by reordering our desires.  He brings to the surface the “desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy.”  This one desire, which overwhelms all others, is the desire for God — what Paul calls “the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Christ fills our mind and heart with this desire until every other desire pales by comparison.  Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45).  So too we who would follow Jesus “sell all that we have.”  We exercise control over what we own.  When we “sell all,” we relinquish that control.  We say, “Jesus, this property, this family, this career, this life are no longer mine.  They are yours.”  And we have made a good exchange.  We have purchased to pearl of great price.”

What does it mean to be healed?  What does it mean to get our heart’s desire?  For whom do we live our life?  Do we live for our own benefit?  Do we live for the well-being of others?  Are those exclusive of each other?  Whose mansion do I want to live in?

Jesus is about transforming lives.  Yours and mine.  So I’ll buy that pearl.  I think Jesus will do us right.