Starting Now

More on life as in "event to event" coming soon.

But for now there's just time to convey what I'm learning about He Who ushers the events along.

On Saturday my friends were so fabulous to celebrate with me in the city.

You know the one.

I guess I'm just weird or something because my idea of celebrating was to go to church. Just to put the crazy in crunk birthday celebrating. It wasn't to be high and mighty or cool (especially temperature wise, because the place was hot with people) or in wide open spaces to ring in adulthood (again with the mass amounts of people).

You see, what I love about a wedding is of course the couple and the party and the love and the dreams about the future. But what I really love is that more than anything it is a dedication-- a recognition that for better or for worse, as humans, we are much more prone to mess things up than to admit to fault and make things better. Thus, the marriage is presented as an offering to God-- a promise to give it to Him before giving it up.

I don't have a wedding in sights. But why wait?

Birthdays, like weddings, are about the person and the party and the love and the dreams for the future-- why miss out on the dedication aspect until that one wedding day that will go by too quickly and for that matter is not even necessarily going to happen simply because it's what I've pictured since I was able to walk down a pretend aisle in a white dress-up dress.

At 21, there is no wedding for me. But there are "I dos" to be said.

Sadie, do you care about poverty?

Sadie, do you care about sadness?

Sadie, do you care about honoring me?

Sadie, do you care to know me more than you know about me?

Sadie, do you want my will in your life? Do you spend time counting the cost?

Sadie, do you commit your fears to me as you wait in anticipation for direction?

"I dos" to be pondered. Commitments to be made. Especially as a single 21 year old anticipating adulthood.

So I took the attention and the love and the company and the well-wishes and the gifts and the party intended for me to the alter to leave it there for Him-- careful not to be foolish enough to think that I've earned or deserved or been entitled to the absolute privilege of a life I've been able to live for 21 years.

It's been a gift.
An unexpected gift.

I got to tell God that I don't expect these fabulous things from Him in order to continue to love Him and enjoy His plan and delight in His promise that He has something much better not only for me (after all, I already have it pretty good) but also for the people who really need better. Who live without enough. Love, water, resources, access, care, strength, life.

I've got love, water, resources, access, care, and strength. I even have life. 21 years of it.

What I want is to have these things in such abundance that they spill into the lives of deep, admitted need.

I want the humility of recognizing my own areas of true need, not wasting time with surface level complaints regarding temperature or taste or smell or personal preferences that are okay, but not what I'm ultimately convinced of... that ultimately are not my hope.  I want to give voice to truly convicting things and to glorifying the God who does something with those convictions.

I want life. Not time, necessarily.

I want to remember that my time is limited, that the next day is not guaranteed to me and that even if it was, there is no guarantee that my life as a quantitative whole would mean something.

I want to be as desperate as those in physical need in my approach to God, asking that He grant spiritual life to my days. And in the process I want to help meet those physical needs.

As Mark Batterson preached on Saturday, I want to make worthy complaints to the One who can do something about it. I want the petty complaints out of my daily conversations-- bigger picture: I want the me out of "my" life.

The Old Testament book of Habakkuk is all about the minor prophet getting upset by what he sees in the world and asking God to do something already. So then God said, in essence, "you're not going to like it." The Lord says that comfortable had to look a little worse before change would look a little better.

And as Habakkuk looked around at injustice and terrible quality of life around him, he coupled his worthy complaints with reverent resolve to do something about it, knowing that ultimately God would bring change and that ultimately his joy and strength was the Lord, not the circumstances in his own life or the lives of others.

And he said all of this with stringed instruments, in praise.

Part of complaining about the right things-- the things that break God's heart, too-- is appropriately appreciating all that I do have. Being thankful for the good I see provides the motivation to confront the less desirable things. It also means recognizing it while I have it, knowing full well that with or without the "good", God would still be good.

I don't do stringed instruments so much. I do pictures, though.

So with my 21st birthday commences "365 days of thankfulness"-- a picture for every day to convey my appreciation for life as I seek out God for life. It focuses on my own life for the express purpose of me recognizing that I have so little to complain about. It also reminds me that those complaints I do encounter in my daily thought life belong with God and not mixed in with a world struggling with worthy complaints. 

Day 1:

I'm thankful for sunflowers.

I'm thankful that they only stay fresh on the table for one week and make you stop and appreciate their beauty while it lasts.

I'm thankful for Noelle (who bought them for me on a weekend intended to celebrate her) and the beauty of college living with her while that lasted.

I'm thankful for the many things she and the sunflowers have in common-- most notably, the ability to brighten my day.

Also I'm thankful for the unexpected blessing that they both were.