A Little Something Like This

Take that book you’re always quoting. Yeah, the Bible. Take it in your hands. Feel the pages, shuffle through, bend the covers. Have you read it through?
Take God’s word in your hands. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word is Jesus. Take Him in your hands. Feel the pages. Those words you fling like weapons, feel them in your hands. God’s word. God. Those words you fling like weapons.
Using them to back up some theology. Using them to judge and hurt and lacerate. Each sting like a whip, taking lines out of context. Have you read it through? Who is God to you? What are you trying to do? Build a kingdom for yourself and prove your intelligence, or humble yourself before the King of Kings? Where is love? What do you want in the end? To convince everyone you’re right at the cost of Christ, or to say what HE says? To be His love, to be His light?

Speaking truth versus speaking lies; they can’t coincide. Choose one and stick by it, don’t defend lies with twisted truth, taking a word here and there. Are you afraid? The Word is fire, refining, unflinching, burning up all impurities. Can you take Him as He is? Can you face Him in all His glory, not the little god you’ve created and put in a box you can carry around like a dog in a purse?

Open your eyes. Open your heart and your arms, stand, terrified if you must, but stand before Him, let His fire rush through. Salve can only be applied when there’s been a fire, soothing can only come when there’s something to soothe. Let your hard heart be broken out of its shell, somewhere – somewhere – there’s still a live, beating one, a pulsing heart.

Integrity; consistency; humility.

Why so determined to make lies out of truth? Only the truth will set you free. What’s more important, God Himself or your theology? Make up your mind and call it like it is. The world needs no more lies, no more rules and regulations, no more burdens. God’s yoke is easy and His burden is light. The truth is in His Word and the truth will set you free. Make up your mind; no more compromise. Choose between pride and God’s freedom, truth, and light; it’s one or the other. Decide.

A Love Letter

Sooo I was kind of expecting this to happen, so I wasn’t exactly surprised, just…taken aback. But I was sitting in my room, thinking about all the studying I had to do that night, when suddenly the thought came: What am I doing? I’m studying languages? Where did that even come from? I definitely thought I would be doing medicine…so much so, shall we recall, that I applied for it and was rejected before I realized that I should just follow my passion, three whole months before coming to UCT (this is not a lot). And what precisely do I plan to live on after I finish my BA? I don’t think there are many people out there paying good money to have a mediocre ancient Greek scholar translate things from or into ancient Greek, unless there’s an isolated colony of Zeus worshipers somewhere I don’t know about. And oh, French. Only about a billion people know French. And Hebrew. Such a large amount of people speak Hebrew and learning it is going to be SO useful in global communication…oh, wait, JUST KIDDING. I mean, yeah, I want to get involved with Bible translation, but what if I change my mind? What if what if what if.

And then I kind of felt like God did the equivalent of clamping his hand over my mouth and sitting me down in a chair. I decided to share this because it applies not only to me, but to everyone who has given their lives, every speck of every moment of every day, to God, and to everyone who desires with all that they are and more to follow Christ, to see his name praised, and to walk with God.

“Don’t you have faith in me? You know this is what I told you to do. Does it matter if the world does or does not think that it’s useless and a waste of time? Does it matter that you don’t know the future? I know the future; it rests in my hands. You’re doing what I told you to, you are where I want you to be, and that’s enough. Have faith in me like you’ve had throughout your life. Haven’t I always taken care of you? Don’t you remember my promises? Your mind isn’t yours to change; you gave it to me, you gave your whole life to me, and I have it planned down to the most seemingly insignificant detail, down to how many breaths you take, down to the dirt under your fingernails. If you keep giving yourself to me every moment of every day, nothing will disrupt my plans for you; nothing will destroy the life I made for you.”

Me: “Yeah, but -”

“Be still and know that I am God. I love you and care for you more than anyone else ever could; I created love; I am love. Trust in me. I am always with you, even to the end of the age. I never give you more than you can take, with my help. I never entrust more to you than you can accomplish. Don’t I know your capabilities, and vices, better even than you? Didn’t I knit you together in your mother’s womb with my very hands? Didn’t I breathe into you my very breath and give you life? I know exactly the purpose for which I made you. I know exactly the way in which I will use you for my glory. Trust in me, and you will know contentment and peace in every circumstance; in pain and joy, in trials and times of plenty, in starvation and abundance, in loneliness and companionship. To you much has been given, and much will be required, but I have given you everything you need to accomplish what I have made you to accomplish in my name. Your life will not be easy, but it will be blessed because my hand is on you. You will fall, but I will pull you up. You will sin, but I will forgive you if you ask it of me. You will fear, but I will give you courage.

“Because you love me, I will bless you. Because you draw near to me, I will draw near to you. Because you hold my laws and commands in the depths of your heart, and because you desire to honor them, I will protect you. When you call me, I will answer. Because you praise my name, you will find rest in me. And when you have found rest, I will send you far beyond the edge of your circles, to proclaim my love for every person, so that they may know my love as you know my love. I have sent the Savior, but they have not heard of him. I have sent a gift, but they don’t know he’s there for them to accept. But because you know him, you know me, and you know the love I have for you and for all people, and I will send you to draw them close to my heart so that they, too, can rest in me.

“I am your strength and your song. I am your lover and King, your friend and Savior, your daddy and your God. Trust in me, and rest in my love.”

Deuteronomy 26:16-19, Deuteronomy 28, Judges 6, Job chapters 38-42, Psalm 1, Psalm 46, Psalm 90, Psalm 139, Psalm 119, Jeremiah 29, Matthew 28, Romans 8, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 2, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Peter 1, 1 John 1, 1 John 3, pretty much the whole freaking Bible to be perfectly honest.

God is Not Like Salticrax

Let me start by saying that for those of you who don’t live (according to the languages on the box) in South Africa, France, Italy, Greece, China, or the Middle East, I am very sorry, because you have not tasted the AMAZINGNESS that is Salticrax. Really, there is no other cracker that compareth to these. They’re addictive, too. Like, really addictive. Once you start eating you quite probably won’t stop until you suddenly realize that you’ve finished all the crackers and are gnawing on the cardboard box. But then they’re gone and because you’re a college kid with no car and Woolworths is just so far to walk (oh my word, an entire ten minutes), there’s no more and you have to go search the cupboards for biltong or olives or something to fill the gap.

So, okay, God is way more than Salticrax, but my point is, my gosh He’s addictive…and he doesn’t run out. Every now and then I manage to convince myself that there will eventually be a balancing out, or a fullness, or a limit to how much I want Him. This is because my brain is tiny and human and can’t quite comprehend the whole infinite thing. The more I “get” the more I want. This, of course, has nothing to do with me, but has everything to do with God’s unfathomable amazingness, his literal AWEsomeness, his breathtaking beauty, his unconditional love, his limitless grace, his every word. He’s far from safe but we are safe with Him; he holds us in his hands through every single circumstance, every single second of every day. I both fear him with trembling knees, and love him and feel safe with him. Even trying to describe him feels a little bit pointless, because how can a creation describe or adequately praise the Creator? How can language, which God made and gave to us, hope to be enough to praise him? His name alone is indescribably, unfathomable, too vast for words. And yet he loves us with a burning, passionate love, a love that doesn’t depend on what we do or don’t do but on the cleansing blood of Christ.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’” {Jeremiah 29:11, 13.}

You Know Me

I don’t know much. The more I learn, the less I know. All I know is God loves me and I love him and I want to make a difference: I want to help people to know him, I want to live Jesus’ words, I want to love like I’ve been loved.

All I know is there’s no time to waste. The world is broken and people need a Savior. Eternal life is grand, but they need a Savior in this life, here, now. People need someone to hold them when they cry, to carry them when they fall, to give their feet rest when they’re aching and tired. They need someone to love them no matter what, and to always take them in his arms no matter how badly they mess up.

All I know is Jesus loves you. Whether or not you believe that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. He loves you even when you curse his name. He loves you even when you say he’s just a prophet. He loved you before the world was made, when all there was was empty space, when even the stars weren’t born yet. He loved you then and he loves you now, whether you even believe he exists or not. Belief doesn’t affect truth.

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me…Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?…If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Psalm 139:2-16

I’d Rather Pick Fights Instead of Flowers

I have a problem with marriage.

In theory, yay! But if I think about it in any kind of depth it makes my stomach all twisty and I kind of feel like either clawing my eyes out or running off into the desert and hiding my head in the sand. And, okay, I’m 19, so that might be partly why…but because I don’t like it when I can’t figure out why I feel a certain way, I’ve been trying to figure this out for what shockingly adds up to a few years, and now I think I’ve figured out the main reason for this.

Maybe some godly women who have it all together (do you exist, oh great ones?) can help me out with this one. How do you find the balance between the stereotypical-but-possibly-in-fact-what-God-wants picture of what a woman should be, and the reality, which is that I freaking don’t necessarily WANT to cook or clean or, one day, say yes and amen to everything The Husband says. The fact that I disagree and, often, disagree based on what I read in the Bible/believe God is saying does not change because I’m wearing a ring on my finger, you know? The fact that I have my own calling that is mine and that might involve a lot of travel and craziness and instability does not change because I decide to love another person for the rest of my life, even when I don’t. I will always have an opinion, I will always think I’m right, I will always be a writer who needs a LOT of time to myself, I will always keep praying and presumably keep hearing from God, and I will always say what I think. Women happen to also get tired and don’t feel like being the picture of purity and grace 24/7, and we most definitely don’t feel like spending our time going “Yes, Oh Great One Who Is Also A Human But Who I Must Treat As My Master And King Just Because I Married You.”

So how does this all work? Because I have to say, I’m having issues. I know we shouldn’t get hung up on the small stuff, but this kind of isn’t small. What about 1 Corinthians 11:8-10: “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.”

Or what about 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “…women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

Some people put these verses down to cultural differences, but then you have to ask what else should be put down to cultural differences, and that could go on forever. Other people just kind of skim over this and don’t really talk about it. Other people totally reject these verses, but that’s not going to work for me, because the Bible and everything in it is true, regardless of who does or does not believe that. So how to reconcile the fact that I believe this, and also believe that men and women are equal, that marriage is a partnership as opposed to a dog-owner relationship? I mean, did I just totally miss the mark here? I’m not trying to pick a fight here, I genuinely want to know. Like I said, I believe the Bible is true and is God-breathed…I just sometimes have trouble deciphering what the breath was saying. If anything’s going to go, it’s going to be my lowly little human opinion, and not the Bible. Any input would be MUCH appreciated. If you’d rather keep your comments private you can email me at africanstardust@gmail.com.