Not dead enough

We got a bad batch of wood. 

The tree had been dead for a long time--or so we thought--and the split wood looks like it should burn nicely. That's what we need considering we rely on the heat of our wood stove for eight months of the year. But that's not what we got. 

The wood catches fire all right. The inside of the stove lights up with a promising yellow glow. But the fire gives no heat. The flames sputter as the wood sizzles and pops from the sap still lingering within. Eventually the wood burns up without ever warming our home. 

What a waste. What a disappointment to huddle before a fire that offers no warmth. What a frustration to sit in my cold house and watch all that promising timber burn itself out for nothing.

Honestly, lately life seems to resemble that wood. I often feel I am doing everything "right," everyone around me is doing everything "right," but life is a flame with no heat, a fire that pops and sizzles and never offers any true or lasting warmth. 

Am I being too melodramatic? Probably. But I can't help feeling there is some truth here. 

Be honest. Don't you ever feel, like I do, that you are just sort of smoldering? Like we're all going crazy trying to get this thing right and all we ever get is some smoke and some sparks, but no heat? And why are we going so hard, burning ourselves up for nothing? 
 
The best firewood comes from trees that are really dead, but not rotten. Our wood still holds too much of its own life to take in the life of the fire. It burns, but it burns without heat because of the sap inside.

Our wood isn't dead enough.

Bear with me here. Maybe it's a stretch to make this comparison, but I've been thinking a lot about death lately. I've been thinking about all the ways I feel stuck in life, in my faith, in relationships, and about the idea that God asks us to die to ourselves. Not just once, but every single day. 

He says the best kind of life--the only life, really--comes from death. We have to die in order to find that life. But we have this idea of death being the end. We cling to life and we try to pack every single thing we can into it before death takes us. 

But what if death is a beginning? What if we have to die to our own idea of life before we can understand God's? And what if we started looking for ways to die so that new beginnings could spring up? 

Maybe we aren't dead enough. Maybe we are trying to burn bright and hot for God, but we are clinging to a life he wants us to let go of. The old life in our core keeps us from taking on the new life of the fire. 

Maybe we are just afraid. We want the fire, but we don't really want to burn. Because then, really, what is left but ashes? And so we try to burn our own way, and the fire runs sappy with life that shouldn't be there, and in the end we are left with ashes anyway. 

Do we believe that God brings beauty from ashes, as he promises? What if we really trusted that true life comes through death after all? What if we believed our death to self would accomplish a beautiful life beyond imagining?

And if we never burn at all? We end up dead anyway, rotting away in the despair of this world, useless to everyone. 

Maybe this is a crazy metaphor. I only know that I am longing for heat. For the blaze of God's presence. I don't want to just smoke and smolder. I want to burn with him. I want to learn what is holding me back, what life I am clinging to that keeps me from going all in. 

Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). I want to be consumed by him. 

This morning I stepped into the cold darkness of the living room and built the fire as I always do. I didn't have much hope. But for whatever reason, this wood began to burn bright and hot. My living room filled with warmth, and sleepy children gathered around, and this became a refuge, a warm, welcoming sanctuary from the cold outside. 

We could be that sanctuary, I think. We could burn hot and draw in a world weary with the cold. The question is, do we really want to?

A see-through story

First it was the IF:Gathering asking me, "If God is real, then what?" What could we dream, do, live? What could be possible in our lives? Then a few weeks later the Storyline Conference with "What kind of story are you really living?" Who are you, and what do you really want?

Doesn't it just seem like the story in our hearts doesn't match the one where bills must be paid and jobs worked and children and homes cared for? Doesn't it seem like the story writes us rather than the other way around?

I don't know yet exactly how to match up the story in my heart with the real story I am living. Lately I've been given a lot to think about. I hope to share it here, hash it out with you, figure out what our stories mean.

Today is the beginning of Lent. I never used to do Lent. Didn't even know what it was, really. But over the last couple of years Lent has become very important to me, and this year even more so.

Lent is a deliberate thing. It's a slowing and a stilling, an act of setting oneself apart in some way in order to see Jesus. To enter again into His story, thereby finding ourselves.

One Storyline speaker said, "Make your story translucent so others can see themselves through it."

Isn't that what Jesus did, wading into our muck and entering into the mess with us, living a see-through life that pointed directly to God?

We keep trudging along with our eyes to the ground, just trying to survive and keep our stories going forward. We forget that our stories are not our own. We forget that Jesus, He IS the story, and He's made us a part of it, and when we live His story with Him, it fills with meaning. And the more transparent our stories are, the more they invite others to tell their stories too.

Your story matters. Do you know what it is? What will the world miss if you don't tell it? During this season of Lent, why not enter into His story more fully and deeply? Who knows, in living His story, you might just find your own.

How to leave the safe place

I was five or six when I got my first bike. I wanted to ride it so badly. I can still remember looking longingly at the brand new shiny paint, the awesome banana seat, and the rainbow streamers hanging from the handlebars. In my mind I could see my hair flying, legs pumping as I raced into the freedom

of fast.

But I could also see myself falling. I looked at the pavement and thought about how much it would hurt when I crashed into it. I longed for the freedom yet feared the failures I knew I would face in getting there. And like many things in my life, the fear of getting hurt kept me from going for what I really wanted.

I played it safe. I begged for the training wheels that would keep me upright and let me have the fun without the fear. I probably would have ridden it that way forever. But it wasn’t the same, and I knew it. In my heart I wanted more.

My family wanted more for me too. And they wouldn’t give up trying to get me there, even when I fought against it. Ultimately I learned to ride a bike because my parents wouldn’t let me stay in the easy place. They took the training wheels off and they stood around me as I took off, and then they ran next to me when my wobbly wheels took me terrified down the street. They cheered. They worked harder than I did. And when I fell, they ran and picked me up and hugged me. And put me right back on the bike.

I learned to ride a bike, as I learned so many other things, because they believed in me more than I believed in myself. The people who loved me cheered me on. But more than that, they pushed me beyond my safe place.

Now I am sitting on a college campus in San Diego at a conference that a few months ago I had never even heard of. I am here because of friends and loved ones who believe in me more than I believe in myself. They are pushing me beyond the safe place.

My writing life has faltered just like my early attempts to ride a bike. I’ve stopped and started so many times. I have had a few wobbly successes, and I’ve tasted the joy that comes from chasing a calling and a gift. But my eyes are often on the pavement, and as a result I often end up there. And so I go back to the training wheels, to the safe, comfortable place that doesn’t challenge me too much.

It doesn’t inspire me too much, either. And I doubt that it inspires anyone else.

I still don’t know exactly what caused my friends to decide that I needed to do this. But they did. I am amazed and overwhelmed that they went to such lengths to get me here. I’ll never forget the complete shock of opening that Christmas envelope and reading the words, “You’re going to the Storyline Conference!”

Knowing that my friends love me enough to dream this up, to scrape together the money to put me on a plane and send me to San Diego, makes me feel . . . believed in. It’s like being on a bike, surrounded by a community who says, “We love you and we know you can do it!” And now that I am here, I’m starting to believe them a little bit. With them running next to me, hands extended as I wobble along, I feel like maybe I want to try to go beyond safe. To plunge into the freedom of flying, knowing they will be there to pick me up when I fall.

So many of you are part of this journey. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for reading this blog and sticking with all my inconsistencies and hesitations. Thank you for encouraging me. I feel overwhelmed with the blessing of such love and support. And I feel a responsibility too, in a good way. I think—no, I know—that God is calling me to write. I am not sure yet what or why or how. But you all have helped to confirm this calling.

I hope it will start here, with this blog. I hope God will just take it and use it somehow. Mostly I just want to plunge in and follow Him. I hope you will keep encouraging me, and I hope you will hold me accountable. I don’t want to just add to the noise. I want my words to do for you what you have done for me. I want to help hold you up and cheer you on as you wobble along on your own journey. After all, you have a calling too.

I hope I can be a part of it. Let’s go beyond the safe place and jump into this story all the way.