On Job and how it blows my mind...

Thanks Liz for giving me the idea to blog the overflow of my thoughts about tonight's lesson.
So you might have guessed from the title of this post that I've been studying the book of Job with my church group at Spotswood and at Encounter. What we've been doing is less a close reading of the book but rather, an attempt to understand who God is through an evaluation and overview of the book (it's rather long).

The overview: Job was an upright man who sought after God. He was also incredibly rich and blessed in an abundance of material possessions and family. God allowed Satan to try to make Job sin. Satan tested Job through two tests. First, he took away his wealth and his children and his servants. Second, Satan put boils (ouch) all over Job's body. Through all of this, Job did not sin. He questioned God at one point demanding an audience with his Creator but God reminded him of his place. Through all this, God protected Job's life by keeping Satan on a leash. Job responded to these trials by worshiping God and remaining faithful. As Doug would say, he was a "stud" of epic proportions.

Things we can learn from Job:

God is in control! I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm also studying the book of Daniel in my own quiet times. Right now, I'm plodding through chapter 4 of Daniel in which King Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by God even though God sent him a vision of what would happen if he didn't atone for his sins. Daniel 4 is kind of a microcosm of the book of Job. King Nebby (as they say in Veggie Tales) had it all: wealth, power, his health, influence, etc. He was aware of all that was in his possession and this made him proud. After a temporary bout of insanity, God restores his possessions and kingdom. It's weird how the passages in Daniel 4 and Job 42 parallel each other. Have a look:

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, "What have you done?"

AND

Then Job answered the LORD and said:
"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
'Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.'
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes."

I love how God is so intentional in how He reveals things to me through His Word. I think the lesson I'm supposed to be learning here is clear. He's saying, "Claire, don't worry. You're in my hands. I love you and I'm taking care of you. I'm going to take your life and make it beautiful."

"For we are God's workmanship [poiema, beautiful something], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10

In the study tonight, we did an exercise with two human easels--Ryan and Liz. Liz was the "difficult" easel in that she wouldn't let Candice draw the juggling gnome the way she wanted to. In fact, Liz was trying to get Candice to draw a house! Ryan was the "good" easel in that he calmly and patiently let Jac draw a pilgrim holding a turkey in the continent of Africa (imperialism?). He trusted that there was a reason that there was so much blue around the edges of Africa (apparently there was a major geological event that launched it into the middle of the Atlantic ocean). This illustration was amazing and meaningful on so many levels.

First, the canvas itself represents our lives. The drawing is the story that God paints with our lives. We are his poiema, his masterpiece. Time and time again I'm awed by the idea that God doesn't look at his creation and marvel.

"But turn a telescope toward the stars, or take the time to look at the brighter stars with care, and they will take on the colors of the rainbow." -Chet Raymo The Soul of the Night

No, he looks at us and marvels. We are the delicate brushstrokes, the sweeping colors, the sharp intake of breath at the final creation, the awe. The more beautiful our lives look, the more glory goes to the Artist who created us and ordained our every step. We need to hold the canvas still, to abandon our dreams of houses when God wants juggling gnomes (please Lord, something else), and let God paint whatever He desires--even if we have to close our eyes and look away while He does it.

The thing is that God allows bad things to happen. Though He is always sovereign and in control, he lets evil happen--the famines, floods, earthquakes, car accidents, cancer, heartache. This makes God sound impotent; like He is powerless to stop these things from happening.

Not so.

God is faithful to limit evil and direct circumstances so as to accomplish His purposes on earth. Like I said in the overview, God had Satan on a leash when he was unleashing havoc in Job's life. Really, God uses Satan, a creature bent on destruction, like one would use a puppet or a marionette. That black smear of paint looks terrible against the stark white of the canvas. But then we see that the smear is actually a raised eyebrow in a sly expression.

My roommate Katie is an artist (newly discovered and all). She was painting a portrait of her nephew, Leo for her mom and I saw the painter's process firsthand. It was messy. Her subject looked weird as the strokes came together covering her pencil sketch. Then, one day, the baby that she was painting looked like Leo. His blue eyes practically sparkled on the canvas. I think what I'm trying to say here is that our lives look messy and incomplete right now because God isn't finished with me yet. When He is finished, I'll stand in Heaven before His throne and praise Him for the painting that He made through me.

I need to be responsive. Jac said something that really struck me. When she was drawing the weird Africa picture, she said that Ryan compensated for the pressure that she applied to the easel by pushing forward where necessary. Being a human easel is not merely a passive activity, it requires an incredible trust in a Most High God and a willingness to respond to the places that God prods in our lives. In order to be sensitive to this pressure, we need to--no, I need to be in the Word thirsting for it and hungering for it like there's no other sustenance in the world.

All these ideas and musings here are so woefully incomplete. They're just like that frozen turkey that's been in the 400 degree oven for two minutes. I think I'm going to continue to wrestle with these notions for the rest of my life, however long God decides that should be.

I pray that this blesses you!

On The Close Of Summer 2010

I've been reading Sadie's blog (which looks considerably cooler than mine probably because she's a hard-core blogger and not a from-time-to-time blogger like I am), and she talked about going through her 700 iphone pictures on the way back from Peru. That reminded me that I needed to go through my rather disorganized collection of photos from this summer and put them in their respective folders. This process of organizing photos made me realize two things--no three things. First, photo-flavored blog posts are way more fun and easy to look at than the other variety.
Second, I haven't done nothing this summer (what kind of English major are you Claire, a double negative?! Seriously?). I've actually done a considerable amount based upon the pictures I took that record these events.


That's a picture of my new friend Sam and I at the Spotswood College and Singles retreat, Distinction. I have bonded so well with my church group in a way that's so unique to my experience thus far that I can only give credit to God for this miracle. I am actually involved in a church, growing in that body, and encouraged by its members to improve my relationship with God. I have accountability in the body, fellowship in the body-genuine koinonia in the most hard-core early church sense of the word, and love for my brothers and sisters in Christ in this church body. I understand that this is a season and that many of the people whom I feel close to this summer will have to go back to their schools in the Fall and that the particular combination of people this summer will probably never come together again like this but that makes me love and cherish this time more than ever. I think that's the whole point of seasons--to makes us understand the brevity of life on earth and recognize that God, the giver of all good things, is ultimately in charge and is sovereign.


A shot of the group on our way home from Doylestown, PA where we went for our week-long mission trip. I was reading in my new favorite book, Stuff Christians Like, how Christians are afraid to pray for patience and humility because God would answer that prayer with a beard and a barrel--a beard from waiting so long for something we want and a barrel when God makes us instantly homeless and that is the only item left to wear. I think I must have prayed in the Spring semester to receive both these "explosive" requests... I think this season, God has definitely humbled me. Thank goodness I have a family and am not left with just a barrel to strap around my mid-section but I've been forced to wait on God and allow Him to reveal Himself to me--slowly.

I realized this summer how important a church body is and how ultimately insignificant it is to be super productive all the time. My college mentality definitely makes me rank summer activities in terms of how awesome they'll look on a resume. Summer 2010 should rank somewhere between an 8 and a 10 if I'm going to be successful after I graduate. I think (according to this same scale) that it merits a 3, maybe. Living my life for Christ eliminates the necessity of a scale of this nature. Opportunities to serve Christ and obey God's will are not the result of an awesome resume. They're produced by hard work and lots of time spent praying and reading the Word and of course waiting upon the Lord.

This summer I got to spend time with my sisters at Virginia Beach...



Hang out with my awesome friend Liz who goes to the Air Force Academy...



Spend time with my roommate in England and good friend Ruth...



Develop some of my hobbies, new and old...
Guitar:


Photography:





Crocheting, reading, writing, cooking...the list goes on. One thing I can say with confidence is that I am looking forward to senior year. The third thing that I realized I missed when I was going through my photos was the apartment 931 shenanigans.
I miss these things in particular...











Battles over fuzzy socks!


I have no idea what is happening here but it looks funny.

Sleepy morning faces before coffee!

See you all very soon fellow flatmates of mine! <3

On Having Superpowers

I just started reading Francis Chan's second book, Forgotten God, which dwells on the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the church. I've read approximately 30 pages of the book and I already have to blog some of my thoughts on things that Chan brings up. Here's the excerpt that really inspired me to write:

"Then in Acts 2, we see the fulfillment of this promise in a way that must have shocked the disciples. The Holy Spirit's power is unleashed like no one had ever seen or experienced before, and Peter shares the amazing promise that this Holy Spirit is available to anyone who believes. The Epistles tell us of the Holy Spirit's amazing power at work in us, our Spirit-enabled ability to put our sin to death through Him, and the supernatural gifts He gives us" (Chan 30, my emphasis).

When I first came to Encounter in the Spring semester, Doug identified the things that I was interested in as Sci-Fi and superheroes. I guess I talked about those two topics a lot in front of him? Maybe I couldn't think of anything else that I was interested in in those times when we were asked about ourselves? I don't know. A question I was recently asked was what do I make famous with my life? How sad is it when the things that are most apparent to others are television shows that I enjoy, fleeting TV franchises. What if instead people identified me first as a Christian and not merely a conservative or an English major or a TV aficionado or a book lover or whatever else will pass away into the oblivion of history? This strand of thought has gotten me very off topic. Back to my initial idea.

Can I just say how freaking cool is the Holy Spirit? According to Scripture, the Holy Spirit is the intercessor between us and God. Pastor Drew said (I paraphrase), when we blunder through our prayers to God since we really have no idea how to pray, the Spirit (the advocate or lawyer) presents our "case" to the Holy God. God hears and answers our prayers! What a great system that God created? Going back to my fixation on the whole superhero franchise (Buffy, X-Men, Doctor Who, etc--according to me, all these mentioned are superheroes), the phrase that piqued my interest in Forgotten God is "supernatural gifts," not spiritual gifts but supernatural gifts. It is a subtle difference, I know, but significant, nonetheless.

As Christians, the Holy Spirit enters us and we are then given superpowers! Superheroes don't use these powers for their own benefit but to help rescue others. The Doctor on the series, Doctor Who, is a Timelord, for crying out loud! He has the ability to travel from the Victorian Age to 5 billion years in the future, just for the sake of the human race. I guess it's more exciting to help others when you're super powerful than not (like the Q on Star Trek, a billion points to anyone who knows who that is) but I digress. Isn't it the same deal for Christians? Doug pointed out in Encounter the other week that though we are given spiritual gifts, these gifts aren't meant for us to use them for our own benefit. Take the gift of encouragement for instance. How silly would it be for someone who has this gift to use it on themselves? "Buck up, Cecil! You need to get out there and do this thing!"--or whatever.

I don't really know what my spiritual gifts are in particular (I haven't had patience to sit down and take a survey like this one: http://buildingchurch.net/g2s-i.htm; too much hard core introspection, I guess). Anyways, it's almost time for small groups to start so I'll wrap these thoughts up for now. Hopefully more later!

On Watching Sad Movies

I've read the book, cried through the book and then finally, the movie based on the book shows up at the top of my Netflix queue and I pop it in the DVD player for some evening entertainment. There's a strange type of gravity that operates in the Cecil home as far as where the TV is and where the other denizens of the house are. Slowly, one by one, they are drawn downwards towards the flickering screen and other entranced viewers.
What movie am I talking about, you may ask? (Or, you may not ask...) Marley and Me, of course! Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston and a large golden retriever unite forces in this funny but ultimately tragic movie. My mom comes down first and assures me that, after having seen the last fifteen minutes of the movie, it is very sad. Of course it's sad! The movie ends with the dog's death! A slow, sad drawn-out death, too.
Patrick comes down next. The TV's on, it's rated PG. Score! I've never actually seen him cry during a movie so this one marks a first.
Once Annie's done with her shower, she joins us clad in a towel for the last twenty minutes of the movie. She knows it's a sad ending and repeatedly cries out, "I don't want to watch this!" and then her attention returns to the movie. Marley's too old to walk up the stairs, more cries that she doesn't like this movie. The tears come when Marley won't come inside the house. They take him to the vet but before they do, the family has to say their final goodbyes to this beloved monster. The floodgates open and Annie is actually crying. Not a few tears quickly wiped away in a dark room but tears accompanied by sobs, sniffs, the whole nine yards. I think that the only thing that kept her from cuddling with my mom was the fact that she was still only wearing a towel.
I'm crying too but as I observe Annie's hysterics, I can't help but laugh at her over-the-top reaction. She hates sad movies because they breach the "ice-queen" facade. Finally, the screen fades to black, I put the disk back in the Netflix envelope, and slip it in the mailbox. Hopefully, the next movie on my queue will be a comedy, for Annie's sake, at least.

New Things, Old Things, A Little Bit of Both

I just realized that the title of this post sounds like one of those lame chic lit books that you pick up in the library because the cover is brightly colored and the title is in a really cool font, then quickly put back down once you've had the chance to read the back cover. If we were in the animal kingdom, the best analogy I can summon is those brightly colored poisonous insects that predators are drawn to (like this one)--and then, once close, it secretes its poison into the curious animal. Sucker!!
Anyways, things that I've been pondering lately:
*Veganism: what!? Claire thinking about becoming a vegan?? Wait--don't be so quick to jump on the judgment wagon. I'm merely weighing the pros and cons of veganism at this point. I'm already halfway there actually. Having given up dairy products (except eggs, still eating those on occasion), all I would have to give up is poultry (which I love), other meat products (which are okay...), and fish (which is good for you). Hence my pondering. I can't say for sure that I want to strand myself in that food limbo of limited options and carb-gorging. I've just been reading what vegans have written on blogs and such about how much better they feel and how much more energy they have. Maybe this is something I will do when I feel my vitality flagging. That way I can actually notice a difference.
*Politics: This past Saturday through Tuesday, I went down to Virginia Beach with my Dad to help his West Point classmate, Bert Mizusawa run in a primary for Congress. We lost but it was really strange being back in the saddle, so to speak. That is, listening to the pundits debate or rave or whatever all the time on talk radio (my Dad's favorite listening choice, not mine). Talking to people at the polls, during the door to door campaigning, over the phone, etc. Being informed on the issues again and having an invested interest in the outcome of an election really takes me back to high school when I was steeped in politics. As President of the Young Republicans and daughter in a very politically active family, I all but had no choice--like hot water with a tea bag in it. I realized why I don't really like being involved in politics anymore...people are incredibly nasty and rude when that topic is broached. I naturally prefer to avoid conflict and so the idea of people employing whatever tactics to take down an opponent is one I would rather shy away from.
*Traveling: I leave for Fredericksburg today and Lake Anna tomorrow. Next week, I'm going to Maryland for a retreat with my church group. The week after that, Virginia Beach (again) for a vacation with the sisters. The week after that, a mission trip to Pennsylvania with Spotswood. Then, a few weeks pass and I'm off to Wyoming for Katie App's wedding. For all the joblessness that I've found myself in this summer, I'm actually quite busy.

Sloths and Salvation

It has been a really long time since I've actually blogged. Sometimes, I thought about how I should probably keep a record of what God has been teaching me but then I realized that the real reason why I wasn't blogging was because I wanted to keep God at a distance and avoid the painful process of reviewing my trek up the mountain of faith (*thank you Doug for that metaphor*).
For my Nineteenth Century Best-Sellers seminar, we are currently reading a book called The Wide, Wide World by a woman named Susan Warner. This book is about a young girl named Ellen who is forced to go from relative to relative but remains true to the precepts of the Christian faith that her mother instilled in her before her death. It describes in minute detail Ellen's struggles to repress her own desires and become more like Christ.
While I am certain that my professor did not intend for anyone to reap spiritual material from the book, it has caused a revival in my faith in that it has shown me what true Christianity looks like. It's a daily process of denying yourself and serving others. That servanthood is, as Jesus professed when he washed the disciples' feet, the only true way to happiness (see John 13).
I've imbibed all the principles of Christianity without understanding that it's more than just knowledge. I guess I've told myself this truth and I've vowed to "spend more time with God" but I don't want it to become a mechanical routine. I want to hunger and thirst for the Bible. Today, possibly for the first time, that happened. I truly hungered for God's word in a way that I've never felt before. I got tired of reading about Ellen reading the Bible and I wanted that same experience for myself. I just felt drained and a bit depressed after a text conversation with a friend this morning, like I was being strangled actually and couldn't fully breathe in. It was as if I had received a piece of really bad news and all the anxiety that I had pushed to the side was choking me.
The source of this anxiety had nothing to do with the conversation but everything to do with the state of my soul. I know when people bring up their soul, what follows is often a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo that I couldn't even attempt to understand. I'll try to keep it simple here: my soul felt sick and I knew that the only solution for it was the Bible. In WWW, John 10 is brought up quite frequently so I knew that my search had to start there. This chapter referred to Jesus as the "Good Shepherd" and I knew immediately that these words had more resonance for me at that moment than they had possibly ever had before. I'm not saying that I wasn't saved before--I don't actually even want to touch on that subject. I am, however, saying that I sat down on the floor in the family room of my house and prayed that God would send His Helper to fill me up. He revealed to me then exactly why I was feeling so miserable. I had been incredibly cruel to some people who love me and care about me. This cruelty is not always openly manifested but it still infects my heart, slowly poisoning all my good intentions. In WWW, whenever characters call Ellen "good", she emphatically responds to them by saying that she is not good! I feel the same way. Appearances can be so deceiving. It's so easy to put on the Christian facade while your inner self decays and rots, lacking the renewing power that only the Holy Spirit can provide.
You're probably wondering why I mentioned sloths in the title of this post. One of the ways in which my bitterness leaked out was through attacking things that my friends were fond of, like sloths. Now, with my Helper, I'm going to learn to love sloths in all their absurdities and despite my own self. My plea is the same as John the Baptists was, let Him increase so that I may decrease. Amen.

Ave Maria Part One

I apologize for not really staying on top of this whole blogging thing. Sometimes I have to choose between blogging and letter writing and letter writing almost always wins. I think it's important to note what music I'm listening to right now because that has a singular effect on the content of what I write. I'm currently listening to Ave Maria sung by Luciano Pavarotti on Pandora radio and it is brilliant. For some reason, my hormones are changing or something and I'm moved to tears very easily (as I write this with tears in my eyes). I can't really explain it; perhaps a woman thing?

Wow, I'm easily distracted. Back to what I actually wanted to write about which is what God is doing in my life right now. In an effort to be transparent here with whoever reads this, I'm going to be upfront about my spiritual struggles and not try to cover everything up with a pathetic facade which, I'll admit, I'm prone to doing. For weeks, I had despaired of not finding any fellow Christians besides my roommate and just stagnating in my spiritual life.

That all changed in Oxford. Last week, the entire program went to Oxford for a week to stay at the University College and experience what it's like to be a student there. The outcome of this move was that we all had more of an opportunity to mix with other people in the program outside of those in our house and in our classes. Sunday morning comes around having just arrived the day before and many of us troop over to Christ Church (name of a college, not a church) to attend a service. The service was quite remarkable: the choir sung magnificently, the church itself was breathtaking, and non-Christians were attending a church service which to me was the most remarkable thing of all. Anyways, after the service, I talked to a few other people about what they thought of the service and that started us on the topic of our own religious leanings; there are more Christians in the group than I had realized.

So Oxford was the beginning but this last week, there's an e-mail that's sent out to everyone in the program that advertises a Bible Talk that a member of the ASE program had put together for Tuesday evening. I decided to come just to show her support for courageously doing what I hadn't even thought to do. On an aside, I talked to Ruth the other day about missed opportunities in sharing the gospel and how even if we miss out, God will provide other means for the truth to be proclaimed...like that passage in Esther, "And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:12-14)

Well, God certainly provided a means for truth to be proclaimed even within the secular confines of an academic program studying in England. I went to the bible study and two other people besides myself and Emily, the person who put the bible study together, were there. Regardless of numbers, I was tremendously encouraged by her courage and initiative to study God's word in "dark" places. We looked at a passage in the gospel of Mark that spoke of Jesus' baptism and how extraordinary that was. We also ate chocolate. :) One girl that came was Catholic and the other was Jewish... I am very excited to see where this goes and what God intends to do with this study. Despair is futile when you're a child of God; He gives us hope, and a future, and a purpose.

Whoever reads this, please pray for this study and for the Christians in this program to be bold in proclaiming the gospel. I'm now listening to classical Christmas music (Still, Still, Still on the Christmas Adagios album); apparently I didn't realize that Ave Maria is Christmas music. ;)

Til later my friends, cheers!