Believing

God is good. God is personal. And God is completely in control.

As I have grown older, these three things have slowly but surely come into question. Really without me noticing, as unexpected difficulties, failures, heart breaking knowledge of worldwide issues, and strange seasons of my life came and went, I did not lose my faith in God but I lost my faith in God's character.

I have stubbornly held onto faith and the grace of the cross, the Word, obedience and a prayer life, and my hope of Jesus's return. But I didn't realize until this past year that I had wandered from these rock solid pieces of His character--that He is good , that He is personal, and that He is completely in control. It actually hurt to believe these things. It hurt to say them to other people. It hurt to find out that I didn't believe them like I used to. Because if I believe He is truly good, then I must believe that everything He allows into our lives He sees as good at least in the end. If I believe He is truly personal, then that means that He is fully "in the know", nothing escapes His view. And if I believe He is truly in complete control, then we all have a lot of questions.

I'm sure I have even doubted if He loves us. Really.

And I want to say three things about these confessions...

#1 The enemy of our souls loves it when we use "sight" (or the lack of it) to rearrange our faith. I was reading in a Martha Kilpatrick Bible study about how Satan used those lies on Eve in the garden..."God is withholding something from you, so He's not good. There won't be consequences for this, because He's not really in control." Somebody has won when we start basing our lives on these suggestions, and it isn't God...and it isn't us either.

#2 Faith is a choice, and we aren't forced into the fold. He is generous and kind, but I think He is heartbroken that people such as myself are saying we love Him but are not believing--really deep down-- these basics of His character! I am telling you now, I want to be one of those fools out there believing God is good, all powerful, and present, standing in the middle of tsunami damage, standing in the middle of war, poverty, come what may. Because He is. And when the day comes that He explains Himself, not that He has to, but if He does, I want to have been on His side! I want to have been faith-full.

#3 As completely against American culture as this is, life becomes much, much simpler and we become much more content when we believe--by faith, by ridiculous faith--that He always is and always will be these things I have mentioned. Why? Because we can enter into His rest. Faith is a sanctuary for the foolish. Let them say it; it's true! We enter into a rest that the world can never have when we believe His Word and His character. All of a sudden things are clearer, because we see what is our responsibility and what is not.

#4 One more thing that may help explain--or dare I say make it easier to believe--these things about God is that contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to the beliefs of my first, um, 32 or so years of life, God's greatest intentions and plans and purposes aren't exactly about us or for us. They are for His Son, Jesus. Again, I must mention Martha because she has taught me so much. She says she used to think: "God loves me and has a great plan for my life." Then she says, "But while those things are true, now I believe a little different. What I see my focus should be on now is that God loves His Son and has a great plan for His Son. I fit into that plan but it isn't for me or about me." I think of the song I wrote: "You're writing my history one word at a time with Your glory in mind, and that's okay with me." It wasn't necessarily wrong, but for me, I am with Martha. When I first heard her say this, I thought, "Isn't that the same thing??? His plan for my life was supposed to be all about Him." But I get it now. The focus was still on MY life. What God would do with Lyndsay Taylor...my legacy, the impressions I left behind, my effectiveness. The Holy Spirit had to explain to me the difference. The difference is wonderful, and leaves a lot of room for the beauty of community instead of individualism, the beauty of humility instead of pride, the beauty of equality instead of competition in the church body.

Let us wait up all night for the Bridegroom, lamps full. It's a long night ahead and we need grace to believe the best about Him. He will certainly surpass our greatest hopes.

Why Our Knees?

Jack and I have really enjoyed watching Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip on Netflix the past couple of months. I cannot believe it only got one season...! I would love to find out why it was cancelled. It was a show that spoke very bluntly of the public opinion (at least in Hollywood) of politics, the war in the Middle East (or the part of it we are involved in, anyway), and Christianity. The main characters were people who produced and acted in a Friday night comedy show, like SNL, and one girl, Harriet Hayes, was a born-again believer.

In the last episode of the season, she and her friend were in the hospital waiting room. Her friend had just found out that his fiance was in bad shape and may not recover, and Harriet says, "Okay, it's your choice. I can do my Holly Hunter impression or I can teach you how to pray." Her friend says, "Let's find the chapel."

She's on her knees and welcomes him to join her, and he goes off in a tirade that went something like this: "If I was God, I would not need people to bow down to Me. I mean, if I really did what I said I did, make the whole earth and everything in it and have total control, then why do I need someone stroking my pride? This is ridiculous. God shouldn't need me on my knees for me to pray." She said, "Kneeling is not for God's sake, its for yours. We have everything in this life handed to us--wealth, fame, whatever--and the only thing not handed to us is humility. We bow to remind ourselves who He is and who we are." He, unfortunately, stormed out. But she was right, wasn't she?

Psalm 104:24-30 says, "How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures...These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth."

Believing that I am on the receiving end so much, if not all, of the time is humbling. Knowing that no plans I make can be held together by my own power is humbling, even the best and godliest of plans. Like a baby, we must stay less than an arm's length from our Creator whether we realize it or not, and whether we like it or not, and that's humbling. We like to be in control and be responsible, and we certainly have to obey and do "our part" but we are so out of line when we begin to think that "our part" is the real work of God. The real work of ministry. The real work of relationships. We obey and we don't take pride in it, and we certainly don't get impressed with ourselves, because that would simply be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Just like I can plant a seed in the ground and take the time to water it, I realize even in me doing my part that I had no power to make it grow. I am not the soil, the nutrients in that water, the sun; I am just doing my tiny part. And so it is.

Why can't we have a relationship with God that doesn't require kneeling--the kneeling of our hearts if not our bodies as well? Because a relationship with God doesn't come as a partnership..."let's join our resources, God! We'll make a great team, God!" It doesn't come by thinking we are His equals and looking Him in the eye and asking Him to do His part, while we can confidently hold up our end of the bargain. Oh, my. If we think we can hold up our end of the bargain, any bargain at all, pride has finally reached the surface. We are dependent on Him even for our part.

Friends Forever!

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about this and decided if I had time, I would write about it today: FRIENDS. Not the show, but the blessed reality of people we get to walk through this life with. Yesterday, my mom brought over a couple of boxes of my things from the lovely teenager years...collages, journals, keepsakes. There are some things that really stand out to me, looking back at those clothes, books, things I wrote, things written to me.

#1 - I am still learning the same exact lessons from my personal walk with Jesus that I was then. I briefly looked through those journals in amazement. I was really pursuing Him. I don't know whether to be sad that I haven't come very far, or just excited that He was so important to me then, too. All grace. ALL grace.

#2 - I wish I hadn't let boyfriends and the pursuit of that have such a high place in my heart and mind. I didn't date, so it wasn't necessarily about my time, but I did form strong bonds with a couple of guys in my school years. I know that's all a healthy part of life, but still...it should have been lower on my priority list.

#3 - Friends were my life. School was bearable every morning because of friends. A lot of times I went to church because of my awesome youth group. Once we went to college, wow, it was like heaven because it was just constant community. We were together all of the time, and they were not petty friends, they were true, true friends. Many of our parents were friends with each other, and now most of us are parents. We're spread all over the globe, literally, some of us doing what we always thought we would do, and some of us doing the last thing we expected. I am so thankful for the thousands of conversations and hours and laughs and tears I have shared with these FRIENDS!

I don't know if it gets better or different or not, but it's been hard for me to grapple with how friendships change once you get married. For one thing, 90% of my guy friends disappeared, and I had some incredible guy friends so it really was a big loss! When it comes to my girlfriends, I didn't lose them, but as time went on past college, I found out who was going to make the effort to stay friends and who wasn't. It had to be a mutual effort or it was not going to happen... But we move, we get jobs, we spend our free time with our spouse, and what a big shock really, we don't have 12 hours a day to be together anymore! I was not prepared for that! Then, shocker of all shockers, we start having babies and the only way we girls can talk is by risking our children's lives while we take the phone to the bathroom and close the door. An uninterrupted conversation just might never happen again.

Oh, friends. Sweet friends. God's love wrapped up in people. In the past five years, I've had a really hard time with this sleep disorder and health stuff, and getting together with friends has had to become a low priority. I've been living on a necessity-only basis many months out of the year, and that's been hard. I'm so grateful for the friends I could at least call or write when I was able to resurface. I've been feeling better for about a week and that's exactly what it feels like: resurfacing. I don't know for how long or even why, but I'm grateful, and my friends are going to know it!

Birthdays and Stories

Selah's 6th birthday was on Sunday. As every mom says, I don't know how my little girl's already 6 years old! I can't say time has flown. We've had millions of great moments tucked into those 6 years! Hundreds of times that I've closed my eyes and hoped that someday I could bring back the same sounds, sights, smells, and feelings of that very moment.
On Sunday, we had a get together with family and afterwards we went to the nursing home to visit Jack's granddaddy. While we were eating cake, Jack's grandma told us some great stories! Here's a couple of my favorites.
*First of all, she gave Selah a 70 year old baby doll--a Sparkle Plenty doll, for those of you who know about the Dick Tracy cartoon. Selah was so thrilled, and said she would "pass it down from generation to generation." I didn't even know she knew that word! Grandma said when she was 6 years old, her mother ordered that doll out of a catalog and even though she was not allowed to go to the post office to look for it, one day she could not resist any longer. She walked across the street to the post office and saw the package in their post office box! She was so excited, she ran home to tell her parents it was in. What did she get? A spanking. For going across the street! Understandable, but sad! Then, of course, the Sparkle Plenty doll was hers and she told us on Sunday, "It was worth it."
*Grandma told us that when Grandaddy was a baby and his mom needed to get some work done, she would dress him in a long dress and then put the end of his dress under the mattress to hold it down. Then he would be stuck and would have to just play within about a foot of the bed. HA! Pack and play, schmack and play!
*Last story...Grandma said that when she was born, a midwife came to her house to deliver her. Her family was poor and couldn't pay the midwife with money, so they paid her with a bushel of tomatoes. A bushel of tomatoes!! I will never look at a bushel of tomatoes the same again! We've come a long way in 74 years...or have we?