Jesus loves me, this I know. This category is about Jesus, the Living Word, my prayers to Him, my worship of Him, His relentless pursuit of my heart and His invitation to me to come to Him in Sabbath, my Savior, my Rest.
I REALLY like him. I use and regularly share The Daily Prayer with friends and family and young women I disciple. I haven’t read everything he writes, but Walking with God revolutionized me…after The Sacred Romance did (my dad requested I read a copy he’d underlined thoughts in, such treasure!)…after The Journey of Desire did a number of years earlier. :)
I hadn’t been to his site for awhile, but the other day I went to catch up and found that he’d posted an entry on his blog on December 26, 2011 called “I am Bethlehem.” {See it here}
And I had, if you will recall, posted an entry in December called “I am the Nativity.” {see it here}
I am smiling as if something wonderful just happened (silly, I know). I want to say something like “John Eldredge and I think alike,” as if! But it is just one of those things. Sorta similar, but not. One written by some one who is read by millions and one who is read by 7 or 8 on a good day. *insert self-deprecating laugh
I re-read the post I did and I certainly recognized my words are so influenced by his writings. What I wrote just came tumbling from my heart in the early dark hours of a winter morning. But they are also words born of the people, speakers and authors whose revelations have pierced my very soul, line upon line, precept upon precept. And John Eldredge is way up there on my favs list as an author! So what felt so powerful and unique to me that day, and for days following, was merely a summary of years of the walk with God and the voices which have spoken in to and impacted my life.
His post was classic John Eldredge. Mine was a tumbling sensory something-or-another. They were different. Yet both inspired by fresh of understanding during the Christmas season of 2011.
And I just kind of think it is cool because I am such a fan. And I feel kind of validated in a very silly way. Because God will reveal Himself to us: wildly famous writer, or not so much. So we shouldn’t be surprised when He does. But can I just {very indulgently} say I am kind of giddy that God did that?
That’s all. Just smiling because the same God that spoke to John Eldredge spoke to me. And to you, too. You know it is true!
For various companies, I have had to endure those tests for personality type or right brain/left brain analysis, so that whichever supervisor at the time could try to figure out how to get more work out of me or whatever (or perhaps why I was so dang amazing). And basically, I have always, whether on a sliding scale or a grid, tested out on the brain thing almost dead-center. One time slightly more in to the right and others just over the left line.
Today I tried again, online. One test scored me this way:
Left Brain Dominance: (11)
Right Brain Dominance: (10)
Another scored me like this:
Left Brain 53%
Right Brain 47%
So see? Close.
But here is the deal. I think truly, I am supposed to be right-brained. And that I am actually right-brained, but that some invisible lid has been placed to squelch it. In fact, I can remember being a little ashamed when the numbers went more right – like I was going to let down the company because of it or something.
I started to do a quick Google search about right-brained people and this is the very negative menu that began to pop up. What the…
When I experience art…
I love zeal and passion and creativity and creative people’s gifts and abilities amaze me. When I hear an amazing lyric to just the most intoxicating melody, or read a poem which strings words together I’d never thought of, or experience a painting with colors that actually make me salivate – first, I go utterly speechless. Just…nothing. Then I start trying to explain it in thousands of words…but can’t really.
And I wish to create like that too. I want to be a poet and a painter, a singer and a writer. I am happiest during inspiration, those times heaven just passes through you and you get all things divine and can suddenly reveal them through whatever your art.
Mercedes-Benz: music
But creativity is only rewarded on Etsy and Pinterest.
I am mostly kidding about that. But you know what I mean. In job interviews, they never ask you what you last created – which would be so insightful, wouldn’t it?
And I think I have unwittingly, at times, succumbed to the right-brain-bashing so prevalent in our logic and reason culture. I actually had a pastor call me forward in church once to speak a “Word of Knowledge”* over me, during which he spent 15 minutes insulting me (and my husband and our two greatest-ever friends) for being creative, saying things like “right-brained people are just ‘differn’t,’ they’re just differn’t.” And believe me when I tell you he didn’t mean that in a o-she-is-such-a-unique-creation-of-God kind of way. I crept back to my seat in shame for being openly creative, passionate and colorful, for daring to live as a multi-faceted, colors-of-the-rainbow, life-filled, green-leafed, curious, and zesty reflection of the Creator. And the lid is tightened.
Mercedes-Benz: paint
Dance like David; Preach like Paul.
There was a contemporary Christian song out in the 70s that I cannot find and I can’t remember the artist or even all the words, but what I do remember of the lyric is this, I wanna dance like David, preach like Paul….
New-Testament-Paul and Old-Testament-David are two of my heroes in the faith. Both strong men, Paul was as good at arguing a case for even the logic in the mysteries of the faith, and quite pragmatic in his understanding the workings of the Holy Spirit – as David was in penning words that that he must surely have heard in heavenly realms. We still sing his passionate prose today, pattern our music after that which so pleased the Lord. One might be able to make a case for Paul being left-brained, and David, right. For Paul being able to make a point by point, logical dissertation on the law and its’ fulfillment through Christ, and for David being able to lead a whole nation in raucous dance and worship before the Lord. In undies.
Left vs right.
So, they say left brained people are more logical, analytical and objective. And they say that right-brained people are more intuitive, thoughtful and subjective. And I just think we live in a culture that rewards one and dismisses the other too quickly. Think school budgets: what gets cut first?
This Mercedes-Benz (passion) ad says: “I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.” And I might add: everything God created me to be + a wild-ox as spoken of in Psalm 92.
And I am just saying
Maybe I am just writing a declaration for myself, but I want to create like the Creator. Can you imagine 6 whole days to create anything you want and then a 7th just to enjoy it all? I want to re-learn to value what I instinctively valued as a carefree little girl (soooooooooooo many years ago), that pen-to-paper and color and glue and mess and trying-something-even-if-it-turns-out-disastrously just in case in the process there is that one moment of glory is not only acceptable, but strongly desired! I want to add wild fits of invention and color into the ordered, mundane moments of my day. And I would like for my left-brain, logical sensibilities to quit hampering my right-brain intuition and wide-open thoughts, which are the beautiful meadow-lands of my dreams. Why the heck must logic and objectivity be at war with dreams?
No right-brain bashing. Not even by my own left-brain.
*Word of Knowledge:This is a spiritual gift listed in 1 Corinthians 12. It is a divine revelation of knowledge given by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes these “words” are factual in nature. An intercessor may impart things God has revealed to them about the person being prayed for, sometimes there is a calling out, like when Jesus told the Samaritan woman she’d been married 5 times and the new guy wasn’t even her husband. In my writing above, I put “Word of Knowledge” in quotations because in retrospect, and with grace for this particular pastor, he was not sharing any supernatural revelation nor the heart of God at all, but rather his opinion that creative people are weird. It was delivered as a Word of Knowledge, but was a sad misuse of spiritual authority, I believe. And that is a huge topic for another day.
In a book by Bobb Biehl, he tells the story of a day he spent “working” in a circus.
A quick phone invitation from a friend and Bobb was on a plane heading for the circus. Just for “fun,” and to “clear out the cobwebs,” Bobb and his friend moved props from ring to ring and got dirty and dusty and tired.
During a break Bobb struck up a conversation with a man who trained animals for movies.
“How is it that you can stake down a ten-ton elephant with the same sized stake that you use for this little fellow?” I asked. The little fellow weighed three-hundred pounds.
“It’s easy when you know two things: elephants really do have great memories, but they aren’t very smart. When they are babies, we stake them down. They try to tug away from the stake maybe ten-thousand times before they realize that they can’t possibly get away. At that point their ‘elephant memory’ takes over and they remember for the rest of their lives that they can’t get away from the stake.”
To paraphrase Bobb’s point – humans are sometimes like elephants. When we are young, some unthinking, insensitive person says “You are not good at this,” or “You’re never going to be able to do that.” Perhaps they decreed, “You weren’t cut out to accomplish [insert-your-dream-here],” or something worse. And just like that – boom, a metal stake has been driven into our minds and our hearts. And even though we grow up and possess many skills and talents and abilities and walk with the grace and favor of the Father in our lives, we are still held back by carelessly-driven or even accidentally-pounded-in stakes, mis-statements placed in our minds so long ago.
In light of this fairly-horrible revelation, we can pray. We need to pray.
God, You have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound, disciplined mind. Let the same mind be in me that was in Christ Jesus. Let my mind be steadfast, trusting in You alone for perfect peace.2 Tim. 1.7; Phil. 2.5; Is. 26.3
Father, forgive the stakes of discouragement that I may have driven into anyone else’s heart and soul, as I forgive the ones that go unseen in mine, but are affecting my life. Help me remember Your faithfulness, remember Your goodness and help me recall Your everlasting love towards me. Don’t let my pierced heart and memory dictate the life I lead. For even when my heart condemns me, God, You are greater than my heart.Mt. 6.8-10; Ps. 86.15; Ps. 103.17; Ps. 116.12; 1 Jn. 3.19-21
I believe in the blessing of the Holy Spirit bestowed in the Upper Room for all times when the promised Holy Spirit showed up on the Day of Pentecost (you can read about it in Acts 2). Right there and then the power to be witnesses and the carriers and couriers of the {good news} became available in even greater measure than what we’d seen through Jesus. Don’t believe it? Read Acts 1 & 2, and John 14.11-13 and verses 15-20, which quotes Jesus Himself!
And I am a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter. Which is a different beast altogether.
From learning to live, walk, act and behave through the checklist-lense of man’s interpretation of an outward-focused holiness, I am still being delivered. People-pleasing, fear-of-man, and all the good-girl, preacher’s-daughter expectations set me up to be the worst of the worst Pharisees. God was always looking at the heart. Yet I was busy collecting perfect attendance pins and memorizng scripture for the sole purpose of getting gold stars on the wall chart.
I am still repenting of terrorizing Sunday School teachers with my know-it-all, superior, eye-rolling, entitlement, arrogant, childish behavior. If only that was the worst of it all. Sigh. It isn’t. If walking with Jesus was just a to-do list, I’d be set. This heart-thing makes it all real, makes me vulnerable. It puts me right in the mess with the rankest of sinners where I stand a chance at being rescued.
I am a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter who is still learning how vast my need for a Savior is.
I’m dark, moody, crabby, hopeless, helpless, broken, undone, flawed and worse. This is why I so need a Savior. Jesus came – good news and great joy {great-great joy}!
“Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared.
This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve,
for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8.10 niv
“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
For the joy set before him
he endured the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.
1960s. I grew up on Dottie Rambo’s music. This was the anthem of our hearts. A haunting melody, a soul’s reflection, a cry of worship to the One. How marvelous the grace…How marvelous that He looks beyond my fault…
When Felix started re-branding Heaven Fest for 2012, I threw a Pinterest board together to show him things I like.
We are simplifying the look a bit. Think Mac. Cleaner. Pure color (not grayed over, nor muted, pul-eeze). But putting the Pinterest board together was just bringing various things that struck-my-fancy to one spot, my fancies (not Heaven Fest’s ,necessarily). When I think festival branding, these things all have a tiny piece of it in my collaged-head. You can see the whole board here:
I spent years liking muted color (think antiques, think Starbucks-coffee-house colors). And while I still appreciate sort of the aged sophistication of those colors, I have increasingly been drawn to pure, bright color.
Blue and yellow apparently draws my eye, too.
I was a young girl during the birth of the Jesus-People Movement.
During 7th grade, I got to board a psychedelic-painted church bus and travel downtown to Christian Coffee Houses where the “One-way” chant became our cry. Songs reminded us there was only one-one God-one book “and that’s the Holy Bible” to get us to the promised land! There was a zealous passion of Jesus during that time. The media took notice.
My dad made me come out of my room to watch 3 televised days of Explo ’72 in Dallas. I was hooked after 5 minutes and it was the first time I realized I was part of a huge move of God in the earth. I wasn’t alone, just a little Christian girl in a small church in my small city. People everywhere loved Jesus. It was there I first heard/saw: Give me a J…give me an E…Give me an S…Give me another S….what’s it spell?….J E S U S….the crowds would yell, over and over.
Heaven Fest was being birthed in my heart in those days. I secretly want to lead a Jesus chant. Shhhhh….
Woodstock. Started it all.
For Heaven Fest 2013, I so wish I could use this poster.
Except it would be “One day, one stage, one purpose.” See how it is all coming together? :)
Oranges are a draw for me.
I am not sure why I wanted the Vertigo poster on my Festival Graphics Pinterest Board, but I think it is amazing design.
I found this recently and have dubbed it “Heaven Fest Hair.”
I hope some one really does this and I get to meet them.
The difference between my Pinterest Board and my actual mind? The thoughts, ideas and images in my thoughts swirl in a colorful collage of layers. Think of photos, stacked, overlapping, constantly moving. That is my actual Thought-Collage.
A Moslander-Family favorite by the Edwin Hawkins Singers
My dad played this so loud on the Hi-Fi, I’d come running home to listen from 2 blocks away. My mom always wanted him to turn it down a little, but 1723 York Street, 1970, pulsed to the rhythm of, especially, this song, “(Come and Go with Me to My) Father’s House!”
