I have always been one to try and fix things, and deeply fear I always will be.
Upset? I can fix that.
 Sad? I can fix that.
Wanting? There must be a way to fix that.
But whether it is age, wisdom, disappointment or the mix, I am beginning to live much more in my emotions. Accept them as they are, leave them be while while not letting them lead me. I love that about emotion. I love that God gave us something to color our lives, while He informs them. Though, maybe more often than not, and as we do with many things, we reverse those roles.

And on this though and ending with it. I have also learned blog posts do not have to be complete. Thoughts without being essays are OK too.

I was doing Yoga

Which is hells trendy, I am aware. But I have been meaning to get in shape again for a most of this summer, and only recently has the time to do so presented itself. And with so long since I last ran or did a crunch or didn't want to cry thinking about walking up a set of stairs, it seemed like something low-stress was the answer. Plus it is relaxing and good for my jacked-up spine. 


Phenomenal. The decision was made and at 9:30 am this morning I committed to some flexibility and tone focused Yoga I found on Hulu. 


It kicked my ass. I was all shaky and whimpering like a kicked puppy. But this is not about how weak I am, so if you were looking forward to a self-deprecating blog post from yours truly, you will just have to wait until I am feeling a little more somber than I happen to on this muggy Portland morn'.


The point is the end of the work out. Somewhere between finding my arm's "center" and sticking out my tongue with my eyes rolled into the back of my head in order to tap into my subconscious, my conviction radar started to go off. My YWAM conditioned one. I still use it from time to time, you know. 


I was reminded that I was once told that everything is spiritual, and I am not talking about Rob Bell here. I am talking about the idea that everything has a profound effect on your spiritual state either positively or negatively. Nothing is neutral and all things have an inherent bend to one extreme or the other. 


I would be lying if I said I do not still think this way. I think very much this way. But in more recent years of my life, it has been proposed to me over and over that maybe those meanings can be changed. What if I just think a lot about Jesus when I am tapping in my subconscious? What I play worship music while doing warrior pose? Honestly, I think those ideas (which I have heard not only in the context of yoga) seem like an excuse to not do the spiritual work and to not wrestle with the idea of what serving God by abstaining might mean. I mean, this isn't important enough for me to risk sinning over, or risk opening up my soul to some level of evil.


But on the swing side. Yoga is beneficial. My back feels better. My hips hurt less. Yoga is the only thing I know of that offers stretches that are going to extend me physical relief and the ability to better steward my body through mending it. And in full awareness that my pain is result of sin in the world, it seems like an equally pathetic cop out to say that I need to just accept that this is the way things are. I do not see any verses that tell me to just suck it up and deal with the results of sin, but rather a Holy Book full of encouragement to fight against sin and its results in our world. 


Maybe there is a way to engage with the good in something, the truth of it, without taking on the bad. Or maybe we do have to set our eyes on Jesus in all things and let the conviction of the Holy Spirit lead us. But I know it is more complex than just repeating Jesus name. and that this world is far too muddle up for anything but God and the Devil to be fully right or wrong.


May God's hand be over all things in my life, because nothing is as clear as it once was.

So I had to write this

But I thought to myself "hey, self. why not share this?" So here ya go. This is a response I wrote to an article in Christian Counseling Today about Psychological Counselling vs. Biblical Counselling.

This is not a cut and dry issue. I cannot pretend I am fully confident in my opinion or in anyone else’s. We have fought about this since Freud and will continue as long as both Christianity and psychology must coexist. Just like the therapies we have been studying these semesters, nothing is a cure-all. Nothing can encapsulate the human experience, or save us from it. Not even our 2000 pages of scripture, it simply guides us to God’s truth. Never mistake that I do not believe that the bible is sufficient. The word of my Lord is more than enough for me. But all truth is God’s truth, and simply because it is not written plain and clear in the law, doesn’t make it evil. I admittedly get frustrated at those `who claim the bible is all we need. Is that so? Have they never read a novel or an article in a newspaper as a material for critical thinking? Should we not know anything about anything outside of the bible? We as Christian look poorly upon drug use because we know about what it does to the body and the mind and from there have biblically determined that is poor use of our God-given bodies. But those who forget our own depravity in the midst of stimuli and chemical imbalance are equally misled. Life is not a black and white series of straight lines. Some people are demon possessed. Some people are histrionic bipolar. Some people just need Jesus; some people need meds so they can think straight enough to get to Him.

I am not sure I believe we need to be psychologically minded to be good counselors. I am also not sure we need a bunch of scriptures to either. All that is truly necessary is the leading of the Holy Spirit and his word spoken through us fully. That being said, we are human beings. We can’t make sure that happens all the time, I am not sure I can ever have that happen through me. So with that knowledge, I am not sure what would inspire me not to understand both humanity from a biblical perspective and the human mind from psychological knowledge to the absolute best of my God-given ability. If I will commit myself to serving people with my life in any sense, I will commit to doing an excellent job by knowing and learning everything I possibly capable of. Or else what have I shown? Love enough to learn or pride that my way is best?

My final thought here may be in contradiction to a point made by the author. The fourth note he made was that you do not have to be a professional counselor to make a difference. This is true. But when we as Christians start believing that counseling is a capability we all have we demean the calling and gifting given to some specifically and we risk hearts and lives by assuming we are equipped for something we simply are not. There are always times we walk outside our callings, but statements like this give power to Christians to think we might live our lives outside of the way God has made us, and this disrespects His design and plan.

Sometimes

But only sometimes, I am struck with the desire to drown myself in my education. I have thought about that a lot this semester. My 3.8 GPA is harder to maintain and I some days I just don't remember what i am working for. Not in a hopeless sort of way, but in an autopilot sort of way. I just keep going with no end or goal in mind. But more and more in the last month I have been fixed on the idea that this is a time in which I have a ton to learn and decide upon. This time will end in a year and a half and although i am not yet scared or anxious for what comes next, the idea of the future sits patiently in the back of my mind, waiting for the moment it can pounce me. 


I have a year and a half to learn, to be educated. I am having information, opinion, theory and debate poured into my brain constantly and I file it away for that moment I might need to know whether I think Song of Solomon is an allegory, an example, drama or something else. When I can tell someone desperate to know the use of Old Testament law. and Honestly, when that time goes, all I will be able to offer is a held to theory. Cause I have 20 years ahead of me before i will be convinced of anything. And i sit here ignoring my Fine Arts class because growing up in my home handled this section of my education just fine, I am struck with something I learned in a class (and trust me, classes and sermons and small groups and conversations with my roommates have all melted together in brimming 19 year old brain). I learned that I am gifted to learn, that I have been placed here, for this season. Not only placed here, but I was gifted with some of the most brilliant bible teaching of an undergraduate level available in this country. Easily the best this side of the Mississippi.  I intend to leave this place knowing all i could. for life, for God, and if nothing more because I have been given a gift. And even though its alright to get a B on my 7 pages dissertation on Ps 7, 9 and 10, its not alright to BS it. Its alright to do less than perfect if I learned. If one day I will use what i said, even if I don'd get it down on paper perfectly. 


I talk better than I write anyway. Anyway. What I have learned this semester can be summed up in the verse that finalized it for me


 Ecclesiastes 9 "⁷ Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. ⁸ Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ⁹ Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."

Darkness between the Fireflies

People don’t truly want the truth. They want what they see to be true. You don’t want to know that before choosing the right, I desperately and near fully want to give into the wrong. You want me to be perfect just as deeply as I wish I could be. You don’t really want to know how all consumingly sinful I am or that I tire of doing what is right and wonder if it is at all possible to start. Because this is all terribly depressing. Or so it seems. But these things bring me no depression. They are just thoughts in my head.

My thoughts don’t stay here long. They bounce to things like falling in love and whether Jesus would have read books. Which then in turn become complicated again, because I am complicated. It bounces to all the reasons I need to fix this and all the ways I could. Sometimes, if I am lucky, it even bounces back to the bible. Where I remember how screwed up David was, or how much we need people like Moses, who seems to have had it right more than most. Or even to Paul, who even as he was perfect in the eyes of his fellow Christians, could feel the depth of power in sin, as he wanted to do what was right and could not, but could do what was not right.

And I am young and ‘perfect’ and just as foolish as I always promised myself I would not be. But I think that is ok.  I’ve lost my rush to grow up. One day I’ll be old and wise, telling my children how they shouldn’t be in a hurry because it doesn’t last forever. And I have always been one to see into the future. And it takes a lot of pushing to keep me still and in the moment. There really is a time for everything. But we live in a world that says quite the opposite. That the time is when you choose for it to be. Drink now, have sex now, play now, work now. Do it all. It wouldn’t exist if not for you to enjoy. But that sentence loses the magnificence of timing. Things lose their importance when you do not work for them, I have always been taught. Maybe the same goes for timing. Maybe things lose their importance if you never waited for them. Would being in love be exciting if I had always been so?  I can only assume not. And what use will wisdom have if I had not been foolish first. What is alcohol without sobriety or sex without abstinence, peace without war, righteousness without sin? Not to say one of these options were better or worse, or equal, but to say that, as in a song with which I have fallen in love over the last few days, the past is beautiful like the darkness between the fireflies. (Also, he kind of sings like Bob Dylan which is awesome).

So to bring this full circle, what is true without all truth? I see little use in being seen as doing what right, when we pretend it comes so easily, and without ever struggling or stumbling, or falling deep deep into it.