Summer Plans

Make this your “Lover-summer.”

That’s what God is telling me now.  That’s what I felt when summer first began, as I ran the last gamut of finals and through the last week of school.  Last year, in Snow Mountain Ranch, was my “Cowboy-summer” (I refer to John Eldredge’s Way of the Wild Heart: which breaks the journey of a man’s soul into five stages: Beloved Son, Cowboy, Warrior, Lover, King, and Sage--with God taking center stage throughout them all).  It was an amazing, wild time there.  A time of going on adventures with God and through the challenges I conquered letting Him whisper to me, You are a man after my heart.  You have what it takes.  It was something essential I needed to hear.  Now it is time for more.  Now it's time to discover God as my lover.

I have loved God and known that He loves me for some time now.  Once it was a novel concept, to learn that the words the Bible had to say about the love of God were more than just words.  The love of God is something real and it applies to me.  It has been a struggle to grasp and accept that.  To be loved by the King of all Kings is no small matter.  In the past, legalism and the resulting guilt and shame have made it nigh impossible to accept His advances due to a sense of unworthiness--which is basically me telling Him I’m a better judge of my character (and His workmanship, which I am) than He is.  Pfft!

Well, legalism no longer marks my spiritual walk.  On the way up to the Rock Retreat, that was overthrown, shown for what it was.  My spiritual life has not settled into a legalistic pattern since.  That’s not to say it’s been perfect.  More like erratic: lots of highs and lows.  It was probably like that before, but before I was often focused on finding and keeping the perfect system to gain and keep God’s love and pleasure (again, pfft!).

I’d like to steady the boat--so to speak--, or at least give it a steady course, but that’s not something I can do from my end.  I tried that lots of times before and always wound up on the wrong tack (all these nautical analogies--me and my Dad are into CS Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series, can you tell? J).  Giving direction is God’s part, and He’s very good at it.  What remains for me to do is follow.  Somehow, it’s always harder than it sounds--I think every journey is--, but He gives strength--of every sort that the journey requires.

God has made it clear for some time that He loves me.  He has made it abundantly clear that He is in the business of redeeming, rescuing, releasing, restoring, and pursuing my heart.  It’s not something I talk about a whole lot, except on my blog, in the privacy of my own little corner of the internet (which has been read by people from a dozen different countries--but so far no one I know: “privacy” is a funny word that way).  I’m afraid I’ll sound crazy, and sometimes I think I am.  But His love is very real, everything in reality speaks to it to me.  The only way I can get away is to bury myself in some foolish fantasy, and even that’s no guaranty--He’s a relentless in His pursuit of my heart and sometimes uses very unconventional means to capture it (nothing He hasn’t done before, I’m sure: He’s a veteran at this sort of thing and there is, as the Bible says, nothing new under the sun…still, it’s not the sort of things I heard about in Sunday school!).

This summer, I want to learn to surrender to His love, let it capture every piece of my heart and fill it.  I will follow Him, but not passively.  I must take up arms against every sin and snare that distracts and detracts from His love in my heart, and jealously guard and advance every good thing which grows and illuminates it.  There is much to do, too much, I think, for one summer--but one summer will be a good start.  There will be war, to be sure, for Satan will never let God have anything unopposed and the flesh is a traitor born.  It will be a war on many fronts, but by the grace of God, the blood of Jesus, and the power of the Spirit, we will prevail.

Here’s a preview of some of the enemies I see ahead of me:

Lust - it has tyrannized my sexuality and terrorized me for too long.  It must be shown no quarter, and at the same time no pains should be spared in rescuing my sexuality.  Though I have openly questioned its usefulness and goodness, God has expressed special interest in this part of my heart, as well as those parts of my heart associated with it (which I’ve also had doubts about, of late).  His interest shows importance, and He is always right, even when I can’t see it.

Laziness - it’s an enemy to be fought in several areas, but one in particular.  I hate managing money, but it’s a resource God gave me.  I’ve let this area of my life slip of late and I need to claim it back, as a gift from God.  Passivity must be replaced with proactiveness, though the easy trust I usually have in God for financial things should be preserved.  I also need to be proactive about work--finding it and doing it with all my might.  This, I have found, lightens my heart.

Diversion - here at home with my family, I’ve found we’re gluttons for entertainment.  Today, on the way to church and from church we listened to an audio book and spent the rest of the day watching episodes of an old television favorite.  This past week, I stayed up late playing video games on my PC.  There’s nothing wrong with having fun--in fact, it’s a very vital part of winning my heart--, but entertainment is very big on the promise of fun and very small on the delivery.  Furthermore, it tends to set me in an isolated artificial reality.  I must indulge no more in the unreal world of entertainment and revel in the reality of what God has made--which is a processes sometimes aided by media.  For instance, I’ve found God often uses songs to get right at my heart, with great effect.

Restlessness - I’m always busy doing something, even if it’s nothing.  It’s like a denial-of-service attack on my heart.  While retaining a proactiveness about work, I must daily surrender to the quiet stillness and rest in God’s love there.

Fear - it threatens every front, trying to hold me back and keep me out of the fight.  I cannot give in to it, but I must retain a faithful dependence on God.  With my eyes on Him and not on the storms of life around me, I can overcome fear.

Isolation - it’s always a problem for me during these college summers.  I leave my friends at school and come home, to a place where I no longer seem to belong.  Though I’m still in touch with some friends from high school, we’ve all gone our separate ways and are no longer as close as we once were.  My family is gathered around me, but--as I mentioned before--often absorbed in distractions.  Though each of us has a relationship with God, we don’t ever seem to talk about it except on Sundays.  The deep, daily connections I enjoy at college with brothers and sisters in Christ over spiritual matters do not exist at home or have been allowed to lapse.  It’s easy to accept the isolation, stay in my room, and write ream after ream of my novel, but this just suffocates my heart.  Although it is difficult to run against the status quo of the family, it is necessary to make and maintain these connections.