curiosity and color

The funny thing about calling into question the accepted understanding of a tertiary issue (as I have done over the last year or so, regarding the status of women in Christian spaces) is that you find out how many people actually hold it as a secondary doctrine—or even almost primary. Not because they really believe that what I think about the “role” of women in churches and marriages has any bearing on my standing before God (I don’t think?), but because our whole culture currently runs on extremes, and we generally don’t know how to handle the idea that gray area or other interpretations exist. Especially as it regards things of God and the Bible.

Of all things, surely these, at least, must be black-and-white.

Right?

I certainly used to think so. But the more time I’ve spent poring over the pages of the Bible and listening to the Spirit that brings them to life, the less I’ve been able to retain that monochrome worldview. Do we really think that the nature of God and His glorious design for Creation and humanity and the kingdom of heaven can be described without a full scope of color and light? Ezekiel tried to tell us what it was like to witness just one brief vision of God’s glory, and the passage is bursting with color:

Something like a throne with the appearance of lapis lazuli was above the expanse over their heads. On the throne, high above, was someone who looked like a human. From what seemed to be his waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire enclosing it all around. From what seemed to be his waist down, I also saw what looked like fire. There was a brilliant light all around him. The appearance of the brilliant light all around was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Lord’s glory. When I saw it, I fell facedown and heard a voice speaking.

Ezekiel 1:26-28

It gives me pause to recall how much of my life I’ve spent limiting how God is “allowed” to act in my life, in the church, or in the world. We build our tidy sets of theological walls, made from little rows of black words on a white page, to contain our gods—proof-texting and cherry-picking and forgetting altogether that the true God operates in another dimension, where our comfortable boundaries are meaningless.

In that realm, color and creativity and living water flood out from every crevice. Curiosity is rewarded with wonder. Ask, and receive—seek, and find. The Father God reveals His heart. The Savior Jesus wins our access. The Holy Spirit beckons us in.

It’s a new and better Eden, lush with the Creator’s life-giving presence and heart-changing glory. He is abundant, and abundantly generous, giving us Himself.

God forbid we wait around to die instead of taking hold of the victory and living like citizens of that kingdom now! Abiding in the nurture of God’s heart is for today. Abiding in the triumph of Christ’s defeat of sin and death is for today. Abiding in the tranquility of the Spirit’s voice is for today.

We’ve met the true God. Can we stop trying to shrink Him down into the form of a golden calf?

We’ve been set free, made new by grace. Can we actually shake off our chains and stop fearing what it means to live without the tutelage of the law?

We’ve been adopted as daughters and sons into the Royal Family! Can we please stop acting like we’re still banished and cursed?

I know that we haven’t entered the full reality of Christ’s victory yet. But that seems like a poor excuse to actively choose a life characterized by defeat or narrow-mindedness. The Spirit of God—who raised Jesus from the dead!—lives in us. Hallelujah!

Let’s wonder at these truths, and fear not our wondering, because if God is good and holy, He will reveal His goodness and holiness in response to our honest curiosity. And then, even here on earth, we might get to see hints of heaven’s glorious color.

mad, but

One of my favorite retellings of the Cinderella story is the 1998 Drew Barrymore film Ever After. It’s the source of many of the random quotes and sayings I use in my everyday life, but one line of Prince Henry’s has always struck a particular chord with me:

“I used to think that if I cared about anything, I’d have to care about everything, and I’d go stark-raving mad. But! Now I’ve found my purpose.”

I exist in the middle of that quote—somewhere between the word “mad” and the word “but.” One of the hardest things about writing (essentially, publicly journaling) for the last 14+ years has been the pressure I constantly feel to cover everything, to respond to everything, to consider everything. Whether I’m writing about a lightbulb moment I’ve had regarding God’s purpose for the church, a line-by-line study of a chapter of the Bible, or a meandering musing inspired by some little snippet of my life, it’s easy to feel like I’m wasting my time if I can’t head off every potential argument or acknowledge every possible perspective.

And it does, indeed, make me feel stark-raving mad.

It reminds me of something I heard another writer I admire say in an interview recently: “You have to be willing to disappoint your biggest fans, or else you’ll become a caricature.” This, to me, intersects with the Ever After quote right at the end—in the words “my purpose.”

My purpose.

What I’m learning, painfully slowly, is that I’m an individual. I’m small. I’m one person living one life in one comparatively tiny radius on the earth. When I write, I can only write what God is showing me. I can only show you how He’s shaping me. Inevitably, my limits will disappoint you eventually.

I can’t speak for every person or cover every experience. Even on topics in which I’m well-versed, I can’t address every point or counterpoint. There just isn’t enough of me.

I love that there are so many people who support my writing and enjoy reading my work. It’s a humbling and, at times, terrifying realization. What a gift it is to be able to write anything at all that somebody else out there might glean a grain of truth or insight from.

And, with all the love in the world, I confess: I don’t write for “fans.” I write because this is how I learn, and I’m learning to follow God’s Spirit and listen to His voice. I’m learning to let Him define my purpose, and that it’s okay if my calling doesn’t resonate with yours.

I know how hard it is, when you enjoy someone’s work or admire their gifts, to keep a separate sense of self from them—so that when they change their mind on something, it’s okay if you don’t; or when God is revealing something to them, it’s not a commentary on what He’s revealing to you. We tend to admire people we identify with or aspire to be like, and it can feel personal when they go in a direction that we can’t or won’t—but it isn’t.

You can still learn from those you don’t perfectly align with. I can still love those I don’t agree with. We can still be enriched by those whose lives are in a very different place from ours. And because we are all just individuals, with our small and limited perspectives, we need that diversity of thought in our lives. To know anything doesn’t mean we have to know everything.

There is only One who is omniscient. There is only One who has it all right. As Rich Mullins once said (oft-quoted by my mom and dad), “We were given the Scriptures to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.”

the God of Genesis

I’ve been reading through the Bible in 180 days almost every year since I got married 10 years ago. It’s been so good—flying high over the surface of God’s Word from January to the end of June, sometimes with a large group of fellow readers and sometimes with a small one. Some years it’s been lots of audio Bible; some years it’s been pages of personal notetaking; some years it’s been writing out insights daily or weekly for those reading along with me. I’ve learned so much about the structure of the Bible, the character of God, and the story of Jesus as the Savior of Creation.

With that big-picture foundation in place, I knew it was finally time to dive deep again. And what better place to start than the prologue of the story?

Every day in January, I read through Genesis 1-11, discovering questions and curiosities, noticing truths about who God is, learning new things about who God made me to be, and realizing what a different world we could all live in if we knew the God of Genesis.

He’s a God of order.

The Creation story doesn’t tell us how He made a material universe out of a blank void, but rather how His Spirit formed an orderly world out of a chaotic wasteland. He carefully separated out the different components of the world—light from darkness, sky from waters, land from seas, day from night—and grouped together the different life forms into their kinds: vegetation, sea creatures, birds, and animals. The pinnacle of it all, human beings who were made in His likeness, He created as one and yet also in two: male and female.

He wants to collaborate with humans.

Instead of creating the earth to be a space for Him to practice dictatorial tyranny, He commissioned His image bearers to rule over it together and to participate in the ongoing activities of life-making and ground-working.

He is a gentle parent.

When His image bearers were deceived and betrayed Him, He didn’t get angry. He didn’t make harsh threats. He didn’t leave them alone to think about what they’d done, He didn’t strike them dead on the spot, He didn’t shame them for their stupidity or their nakedness. Instead, God sought them out, heard them, cared for them, and covered their shame.

He models both grace and boundaries.

There were clear consequences for Adam and Eve’s sin, and they were upheld graciously as protective boundaries, not punitively as wrathful punishment. The same gracious boundaries led to the catastrophic Flood—not because God hated or wanted to destroy what He had made, but because the earth was so corrupted that it must be cleansed.

He is clear and direct.

We don’t have to guess or infer or hope to figure out what He wants. When He called humankind to rule over Creation, He said it directly and repeated it several times. When He received Cain’s subpar offering, He clearly communicated how Cain could do what was right. When He made a covenant with Noah, He spelled out the exact terms.

There is so much more, an endless wealth of truth to be mined from these first eleven chapters of the Bible. This month, I’m zeroing in on Genesis 1, and already overwhelmed by the beauty of how God created our world and how the Spirit inspired the Biblical authors to record it.

If you want to join me in any of this, here’s the plan I made (and here’s the notetaking journal I’m using):

• January: Read Genesis 1-11 daily

• February: Read Genesis 1 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• March: Read Genesis 2 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• April: Read Genesis 3 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• May: Read Genesis 4 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• June: Read Genesis 5 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• July: Read Genesis 6 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• August: Read Genesis 7 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• September: Read Genesis 8 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• October: Read Genesis 9 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• November: Read Genesis 10 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• December: Read Genesis 11 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly