I Want to Be Scared

Lord, get me out of the way.

I’ve been writing a lot about fear. But I’m realizing there are some things I might want to be a little more scared of.

I want to be a little scared I might not be doing this right.

No, I don’t want to live in fear and I don’t want to think it’s all up to me. I don’t want to buy into the prideful lie that I can mess with God’s plan or that He’s placing the burden of His work solely on my shoulders.

But I do want to be a little bit scared that I might be too selfish, that I might fill up on others’ affirmation, that I might have my heart set on the wrong things.

I want to be brave and I want to run headfirst into the things He is asking me to do. But I also want to be a little cautious anytime His plans might involve some spotlight. Because I’m selfish and prone to seek my own glory instead of His.

So there are some things I’m learning to be a little bit scared of. Is the terminology wrong? Maybe, I’m still figuring this out. But it’s the words I have right now for the feeling and concept and attitude I want to have.

Here’s the thing: I know how sin most often creeps into my life. It’s when I let the warm feeling of human approval and the sound of applause overshadow that still, small voice.

I want to be cautious whenever pride creeps in and I face the temptation to stop listening.

I don’t want the kind of brave that ever stops waiting for direction and wisdom.

I don’t want a bravery that rushes past patient and faithful and barrels straight into foolish.

I want to be a little scared – the kind of scared that recognizes my own limitations and sinful tendencies, not the scared that doubts the ability of my God to redeem and rescue and make all things new, including me.

Really, I just want to be scared that I’ll get in the way.

Again, is that the right word? I don’t know. Maybe wary or cautious or guarded is better. But there’s something powerful about admitting that for all my flag-waving against fear, there are some things a fragile little human like me needs to be scared of, and then ask her God to guard her heart against.

I want to be scared that I’ll start making followers of a God of my own making, not the God who was and is and is to come. I want to be scared that people will see me instead of Him.

I want to be guarded against accidental self-promotion and wary of the kind of wandering glory that could end up shining on me instead of Him.

I want to get out of the way. Lord, get me the heck out of your way.

 

 

 

“Moral Decay” and Christian Alarmism

I’ve always been a little confused about what the phrase “evangelical” means, but never more so than during an election season.

It seems like every pollster and pundit has an idea about who is getting the “evangelical” vote, who is pandering to “evangelicals,” and who is more in touch with their “evangelical” base.

As a Christian deeply interested in politics, it’s always amusing and often confusing to listen to what the “evangelicals” are apparently saying and doing.

From transgender bathroom bills to the upcoming presidential election, there seems to be one reoccurring trend that Christians across denominational lines are embracing: panic.

Everything is lost, the apocalypse is upon us, and all our leaders are going to hell.

For the less extreme, it sounds more like this: crying “moral decay,” pronouncing God’s judgement upon a sinful nation, bemoaning the declining Christian influence in America.

But it all boils down to this: panic. We’re freaking out, and while our solutions are varied, our alarmism is not.

So what do we do with our mutual doomsday-prophesying?

We try to fix it all. We try and pass all the moral legislation we can sneak under the noses of our sinful leaders. We use every resource at our disposal to squash out the outwards signs of “moral decay.” We’re running around with a couple buckets, trying to stop leaks from every room of the house.

But here’s the truth: it isn’t working.

We know the God that gives life and we’re selling band-aids at the morgue.

We keep trying to patchwork holiness together in sinful people, instead of counting on Jesus to transform their hearts.

When are we going to wrap our heads around the fact that the world is going to act worldly?

No, everything is not getting worse. It’s always been sinful and broken and lost. There is nothing new under the sun, after all.

When we spend all our time criticizing the world for being the broken place we already know it to be, we forfeit the precious time we have to tell it about the one who can heal it, the one who is constantly in the beautiful process of redeeming it.

We are supposed to be about the work of bringing heaven to earth and being His hands and feet so His will can be done, but instead we’re bickering about which color to paint our rotting house. We can’t give it life, only He can.

Is this a reason to give up on politics? No. It’s a reason to pick our battles wisely.

I’m not saying there aren’t some battles worth fighting, I’m saying that maybe they aren’t even battles at all.

Maybe it’s time to lay down the weapons.

Jesus was all about bring change to His culture and questioning the power of the ruling government. But He did it in all of the weirdest ways. He hung out with the broken and the sinful, He didn’t wage a war against them. His model was one less glamorous than pundits arguing on TV and much less efficient than starting an online petition. He loved people and He gave them life. And then those people told other people. And they loved each other. Honestly, they hung out with each other. They kept loving and eating and talking and living together. And it happened over and over again for thousands of years. And it’s the only thing that has ever truly changed the world – people who love Jesus loving other people.

We keep telling a sinful world to stop sinning, but instead of telling them about the one who can free them from the bondage of their sin, we’re trying to ban as much of it as we can.

Am I advocating for a world with no laws against immoral behavior? (Nice try, I was a debater in college and I can smell your skepticism from a mile away.)

No. I’m advocating for political platforms to take a backseat to loving Jesus and loving people. I’m all about just legislation and good political involvement, but I’m sick and tired of us thinking it can truly change people. And I’m sick and tired of us acting surprised when a broken world is broken again and unsaved people keep on sinning.

We worship an omniscient and omnipotent God, but we act baffled when earthly solutions fail again and again.

We’ve bought into the lie that talking the loudest means we’ll be heard, that having the most powerful people on our side will give us influence, that “taking back our country” will be for His glory.

Our Jesus never launched an effective marketing campaign. He ignored crowds to talk to children and He warned people not to follow Him if they wanted an easy life.

Maybe it’s time we stopped fighting “culture wars” and started following the example of the God who became man – loving God and loving people, over and over and over again.

 

 

 

pretty sins.

I’ve been treating some of my sins with kid gloves.

Mostly fear, insecurity, doubt, and whatever combination of the aforementioned keeps me up at night, tossing and turning.

Maybe this is normal, but right after all the graduation celebrations, it hit me like a brick: I know nothing and I have no idea what I’m doing. I guess I just thought that once I had passed the exams, walked across a stage and had a diploma in hand, I’d suddenly have more control. I’d wake up the next morning, bursting with confidence and wisdom, and take on the world. Instead, I’m more scared than ever. I have no idea what I’m doing.

But instead of dealing with this fear, I’ve been treating it like a positive attribute or a badge of honor that proves I really know how broken and fallen I am. Somehow, women have been taught that insecurity looks good on us. So we pull it on like a sweater and wear it around for a while.

I always come to find that some of it has rubbed off on me a little too deeply. But I keep putting it back on, because the real problem is that I don’t think there’s a problem.

All this fear and insecurity and doubt have one thing in common.

They’re pretty sins. They look nice and presentable. They’re usually masquerading as strengths, and they’re very socially acceptable.

There are quite a few of these, but my particular brand of pretty sin seems to be a fake humility that I wash over everything to make sure I never try too hard and fail. I’ve convinced myself that as long as a keep a sufficiently low view of what God can do with me; I’ll be pleasantly surprised instead of crushingly disappointed.

I’ve been taught a brand of humility that looks strangely like uncertainty and insecurity. I’ve been taught to not take up too much space or make too much noise.

If we were talking about lust or pride or thievery, it’d be easy to call it like it is. But these pretty sins are masters of disguise.

He tells us over and over and over again: do not fear. And I keep doing it anyway.

In this year of brave, I don’t have time to dress up my insecurity as bogus humility and my fear as “common sense.” I’m naming names and calling it like it is, not like I see it.

I’m calling my fear what it is: a lack of faith.

It’s so easy to move from believing I’m incapable without Him (a beautiful truth) to believing I am incapable of being used by Him (a dangerous lie).

So I’m not treating my insecurity like a little kid that just doesn’t know any better, I’m treating it like the passion-squelching, joy-robbing, God-doubting problem it is.

I’m not going to harbor it like a well-kept secret or display it like a hard-won award. I’m giving it to the God who provides ability and wisdom and strength. I’m repenting of the sin that is a sin – the insecurity that is really a lack of faith in my God.

I’m not just going to clench my teeth and try harder to not be so scared. (I’ve learned that doesn’t work out so well.) But I am going to be honest with myself and the God who knew what was going on this whole time. I’m going to stop asking for confidence or a stomach with a few less butterflies, I’m going to start asking for the faith that only His grace can give.

I’m going to repent of my wavering heart and fickle faith.

I’m going to take the faith He gives and keep asking for more.

God Doesn’t Need You

I was a terrible prayer leader.

For those of you that don’t know, at my school a prayer leader is part of the leadership structure. They have a group of 3-6 students from their dorm that they meet with on Wednesday nights, pray with, and encourage.

And I was a terrible one.

The reason is simple. It’s not that I didn’t love those girls, it’s not that I didn’t wholeheartedly want to serve them, it’s not even that some of the expectations made me uncomfortable (that’s another blog post).
It was this: I was stretched too thin. I had too much on my plate. However you want to put it, I was too busy.

I was trying to finish my last semester of undergrad, apply for scholarships for grad school, work 20 hours a week, travel to debate tournaments every other weekend, teach a weekly Bible study, plan community service activities every free weekend, mentor the freshmen, and write two blog posts a week. And then I added on a weekly campus event, prayer groups, and leadership meetings. It was too much.

I talked a big game this semester about choosing my “yeses” carefully and saying no to anything less than what my God was asking of me.

Psh.

That sounds nice, but typing flowery sentences and forcing a cramped “no” out of your mouth are totally different ballgames.

I wrote about my human limitations while nurturing a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that I was different. Other people couldn’t do all of this, but I was special. I could take on so much more than other people. I had this whole thing figured out, and adding any kind of ministry or spiritual thing had to be a good idea, right?

Wrong.

Now I know the words I wrote out of my smarty-pants attitude, gushing with wisdom and knowledge, were…actually right. Darn it.

Like so many other things, the words I spoke so confidently in the abstract were coming back to bite me in the real world.

(Now I’m a little more cautious when I come up with some great idea for a new blog post. What great idea is going to become a little too real in the near future?)

But here is what I’ve learned now that the fluff has hardened into biting truth:

God doesn’t need me.

I had heaped responsibilities onto an already-bulging calendar because I thought it was my job to save everyone. I had been so miraculously changed by my God, I wanted everyone else to experience what I had. But I had also twisted the good command to make disciples into a success-seeking desire to take credit for everything He was doing.

But it’s true: He doesn’t need me.

Seriously. It’s so hard for us to get this, because we are constantly playing the game of humanizing God, and we’ve never met anyone who didn’t have needs, especially for other people.

But it’s true – He doesn’t need us. And He sure as anything doesn’t need me. (It only takes a few fall-flat-on-your-face catastrophes to remind me of that.)

But after enough fiery Hell sermons, we think that if we don’t go out and save the world, no one else will. We think it’s up to us to be the savior.

Which is so unbelievably silly, because THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD HAS ALREADY COME.

He came. He conquered death on a cross and He tore the veil and He redeemed and restored and reconciled His lost people to Himself again.

He told us to go out and make disciples, but He didn’t tell us to save anyone.

He didn’t tell us to save anyone because we are small and sinful and we complain a lot. He knew that He would be doing the saving and we would be the ones either choosing to obey or to ignore the glorious invitation He so graciously offers.

He has commanded us to make disciples and He often asks a lot of us, but there is only one job that is ours: obedience.

(That’s kind of the theme of my semester, here’s more on that.)

It’s not a question of if the job will get done, because He will get His way.

We have far too small a view of our God and an oversized a view of ourselves if we think we can stop the plans of the omniscient, omnipotent, Creator of the universe.

We can’t.

It’s really just a question of if you’ll miss the opportunity to be a part of His plan. (And that is NOT an excuse to go right back to stressing, it’s a reason to get your booty moving and leave the heavy lifting to your heavenly Father.)

Him not needing you is good news. He isn’t a needy God, waiting on His people to do what He says. He’s not like earthly rulers, hoping the people follow their commands and nervously holding off revolts. This King of Kings is gracious enough to invite us into His glorious redemptive plan, but He doesn’t need our help.

 

This is reason for a sigh of relief, people.

This is reason for wholeheartedly tackling the dreams and goals He has placed in our hearts, because we have the freedom to make mistakes.

This is reason for a fearless fall into the work He has given us, without the strain of unmet expectations, the anxiety of finding your value in your work, or success-driven exhaustion.

This is reason for wholehearted worship of a God who does more than love us, He asks us to be a part of His glorious worldwide redemption.

I don’t know.

Sometimes I wish we wouldn’t lie so much.

We often bemoan the tendency of Christians to pretend that their lives are perfect and they’re doing “just fine.”

But I’m more concerned about our tendency to pretend that we “get” all of it.

I’m sick of feeling the pressure to act like I understand it all, like I don’t have any questions or fears or misunderstandings.

I’m done feeling like I can’t confess that there are some huge questions I have about the Bible. Or admit that there are portions that I just really feel uncomfortable with.

 

When I met Jesus in high school, I decided I wanted to know everything about this crazy thing I was signing up for. I started a plan to read through the Bible in a year, and with a Bible on my left and a journal on my right, I set out to find answers to every remaining question. I was bright-eyed and passionate. I wanted to journal what He was teaching me and keep track of the fresh discoveries I knew awaited me.

Instead, that journal became more like a long list of indictments.

Every time something didn’t make sense or didn’t line up with the suburban American Christianity I’d grown up with, I wrote it down. Every day became less like a diary entry and more like a speeding ticket – a list of all the things I didn’t like. I slowly stopped asking earnest questions and started listing “problems.”

I searched for answers to my questions, but my accusatory spirit was rarely satisfied. I wasn’t content to deal with partially-revealed mysteries. I wanted the whole truth laid out in front of me, and anything less was another chip off my faith.

 

I’m an inquisitive person.

I love solving puzzles, finding solutions, and resolving problems. But this beautiful story is a lot more complex than my little human mind, and my God is a lot bigger than the neat boxes I want to fit Him into.

 

I write a lot about being uncomfortable, but this is one thing I’m learning to be comfortable with: my box of mysteries. (Sounds a little trippy, I know, but stay with me.)

I’m learning to keep a little metaphorical box in my head, where I store all the unanswered questions, uncomfortable theology, and confusing passages of Scripture.

No, I’m not shutting all my questions away until the little box bursts and I totally freak out and abandon the faith.

This box is wide open – things get put in, taken out, studied, examined, and contemplated. Sometimes they get put back in the box and sometimes they get a little more “figured out” and taken out of the box.

The box isn’t there to ward off uncomfortable ideas or confusing questions, it’s there to give them a home. I don’t want to brush them aside or lock them up, I want to keep them safe – a place where it’s okay to pursue truth with passion, but where lingering questions, uncomfortable ideas, and confusing answers can find rest.

I’m learning to be uncomfortable in a lot of areas, but this is one area where my unease is actually really harmful.

I want to squash the uncertain and the complex and straighten everything out into neat lines and boxes. I want an answer to every question, leaving no room for mystery or unknown.

For some reason, I’m afraid to say “I don’t know.”

But there are some questions that aren’t meant to be answered (at least right now). There are some issues so complex and thorny that while I love analyzing them, I end up concluding that I’m okay staying in the camp of “I don’t know.”

My little box is growing, as things I’ve always thought to be true unravel before my eyes and questions I always thought had straightforward answers turn out to be much more complicated.

Don’t get me wrong, some of this is very simple – I’ve given my life to Jesus, and He has taken over all control. He died to save me from the eternal consequences of my sinful nature. He brings renewal, restoration, and redemption.

I don’t want to muddy up the clarity of the Gospel, but I also don’t want to oversimplify the mysteries and wonders of an ancient Book that still speaks to me today.

I’m also realizing that the Story I fell in love with isn’t a moral fairytale or a textbook – it’s a story. A beautiful story in the truest sense – it’s sincere and authentic and complex and lovely. So I don’t need to understand every intricacy or detail. I’ve fallen in love with a grand and masterful story that provides answers to the deepest desires of my heart, even if it doesn’t answer every mystery.

It’s fun and enriching and it’s good work to untangle some uncertainties and answer some questions, but it only stays that way if you recognize the limitations and accept that some mysteries will stay mysteries.

So my box is wide open and it’s carving out a comfortable space for itself in my mind and my heart.

 

When there are only so many chairs at the table.

Competition is built into the very fabric of my being. It takes a lot of prayer to breathe in His grace and exhale my own inner competition.

He is working in me, and I am learning to desire higher things than petty comparisons and trivial successes.

But there is still a part of me that sees everyone as a competitor and every opportunity as a chance to win.

Instead of seeing a friend’s success, I see a missed opportunity. Instead of seeing God working in others, I see my own failures.

I don’t see something profound and beautiful and God-glorifying, I see one less open place for me.

But our God is a God of abundance and there is always room for more.

He is the creator of a million colors, the complex human mind, and two hundred kinds of puppies. (Seriously, that’s the real number.)

He carved sweeping canyons with His words and filled world-covering oceans.

He took a bunch of lost and lonely humans and made them a people. And then He spoke to them.

And just when you thought they had turned from Him too many times, He became Emmanuel. Every time you thought He was fed up with His forgetful and selfish people, He gave more grace upon more grace. More and more and more.

He could have sent His Son to die and told us – “just wait on Earth, you’ll be reconciled to me eventually.”

But the veil was torn, and a weary world was given more than it deserved. More and more and more than it deserved. Over and over again.

He gave out this extravagant gift of hope and eternal life, but He also healed the sick and raised the dead right where they were.

He didn’t come to get the job done and wipe His hands of His silly, fickle people. He came to love all over the place, to teach us truths that enliven our souls this side of Heaven, to keep giving us more than we deserve.

I read the Gospels and its just one act of crazy radical grace after another. He heals the centurion’s servant and then he turns around and raises the mother’s son from the dead.

He teaches and teaches and creates disciples to keep on teaching.

Every time you think He’s done, there’s more.

Our God is a God of abundance.

He prepares a place for us and there is always more room at the table.

Someone taking a seat doesn’t mean there are any less chairs.

But this side of Heaven, sometimes there actually are only so many chairs. Sometimes there are literally only a few chairs at tiny Starbucks tables, and sometimes there are only so many promotions and publishing deals and spots in the show. We live in this world of harsh limits and awkward spaces where I always feel like I’m taking up too much room or talking too loudly. But even on this side of Heaven, He is abundance and there is always more room. It won’t always look the way I imagined and it might hurt more than I thought, but there is always room and He is always giving more grace.

So I’m learning that I only have this one job.

My job is obedience.

My job is to die to myself, and sometimes that means risking my own success to lift up my brother or sister.

My job is to do what He asks, even if it looks like I’ll fail and even if everyone else thinks I’m crazy and even if I have to help someone else “win.”

My job is to do the thing that I do, to do the thing that He keeps asking me to do and the thing He keeps providing the strength and inspiration for.

You also have one job, and it’s the same one I have, but there is no competition. I can’t do your job and you can’t do mine.

You have one job – obedience. Do the thing that you do, the thing that He keeps asking you to do and the thing that He keeps providing the strength and inspiration for.

Every beautiful created thing, every God-glorifying work of art and labor of love is waiting to be done, waiting to be created.

Your job is not to manufacture the results of that creation; your job is to say “yes.” Say “yes” to that thing He is asking you to do. He gives grace upon grace, and your only response can be “yes” upon “yes.”

 

Extravagant Hope

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – John 14:27

 

I dare not hope so extravagantly.

Believing Jesus when he said he was giving peace feels like asking for far too much.

“Peace” feels so far from my crumpled sticky notes and drained cups of coffee.

It feels miles away from my wringing fingers and messy hair.

////

Have you ever played the “After This” game?

After this test I won’t be stressed anymore.

After this week, I’ll be free to do all those things I’ve wanted to do.

After this degree is finished, my life will get easier.

After this month, money won’t be so tight.

After This is a place I’ve carefully constructed in my mind – a land of no To-Do lists, unmade beds, or dirty dishes. It’s the constantly displaced future life when you won’t be stressed or busy.

And even though it never seems to actually materialize in the “after” period, I still end up believing in it again and again and again.

I’ve finally realized that After This will never come.

I’m never going to live in a magical future where I have no pressing obligations or worries rattling around in my head at night.

I’ve discovered that this peace Jesus was leaving with his followers was not another promise of After This. He wasn’t reassuring them that the final After This would eventually come and he’d give them peace after this life and in Heaven. He said he was leaving peace with them.

I’ve been putting my hope in After This. It’s actually a pretty weak hope – I settled for hoping for clean dishes and an uncluttered calendar.

But I’m going to begin hoping big giant hopes.

I’m going to hope extravagantly for a peace that surpasses understanding and floods my circumstances. Believing any of his promises requires a dose of extravagant hope – he doesn’t promise us less than life to the fullest.

C.S. Lewis said that our desires were too weak – we want “drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

I think the same could be said of our hopes. We hope for too little. We pray for our lives to be tidied up instead of radically changed. We ask Him for an umbrella instead of asking for a peace strong enough to take on the storms.

We need to hope extravagantly. We need to hope and ask and pray for an encounter with Him so strong it changes our lives.

He listens to all my prayers, but I’m learning to start asking for that peace he promised instead of clean dishes.

 

5 Myths about Christian Colleges

My mother claims that if she had sent me to a liberal university, I’d have come out a fiery, ardent conservative.

She’s right about one thing: I’m not afraid to be the minority opinion. Whether I actively oppose whatever culture I’m immersed in is up for debate, but she’s right that she didn’t exactly get what she’d bargained for when she sent me to a Christian school. Sending your kid to a conservative Christian university doesn’t typically make them less politically and socially conservative than when they started. But what’s weirder is how lost I became in my first two years at a Christian school.

 

I succumbed to an idol stronger and more all-encompassing than ever before.
I was close to so many Christians and I’d never felt farther from God.

Ironically, I was lost at school, but I was found miles from campus.

My journey over the last four years at a prominent Christian university has taught me just how wrong my preconceived notions of a “Christian” school were before I enrolled. I love my school, but I started my freshman year with quite a few misguided ideas about what a “Christian college” would be like.

Here are some of the biggest “myths” about Christian universities that I had to unlearn.

1. You will grow spiritually.

Maybe you will, maybe you won’t – shockingly, that’s still up to you and God.

Sometimes, being surrounded by a “Christian culture” can make it easy to get complacent. You talk about God all the time, right?

But it’s easy to talk about God a lot, without actually talking to Him.

There’s an assumption that you’ll grow by osmosis – you’re surrounded by so much spiritual stuff that you’re bound to pick up on some of it. Throw that much at the wall and some of it is bound to stick.

That culture of complacency can be surprisingly difficult to fight against. When your professors pray before every class, your RAs tell their testimonies at hall meetings, and you hear “God is in control!” as much as you hear “Study hard!” it’s easy to just go through the motions. It’s easy to speak the Christian lingo and learn the worship hand motions without actually growing at all.

It’s easy to let all these Christians’ voices drown out His.

Is there opportunity for growth? There always is. It’s not that He doesn’t use Christian schools; it’s just that He doesn’t use them any more than other circumstances that His grace redeems.

 

2. Everyone thinks alike.

One of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced as I’ve grown and changed over the course of my time at school has been the assumption that I agree with everything my school does or says. I go to a nondenominational evangelical Christian university, and it’s diverse. Ethnically, culturally, socially, politically, and theologically. We all take the same set of Bible and theology classes, but even among the most general tenants we are taught, there are students that disagree. I have roommates with very different theological and political beliefs, and we enjoy discussing them. My mind has been widened, my beliefs strengthened and sometimes revised, and my appreciation for contrasting viewpoints has increased.

 

3. You don’t need to go to church on Sunday, because you basically go every day at school.

This is one of the hardest things – articulating the deep importance of church to a group of students who feel like their semester is pretty much “church.” Part of the problem is the cheapened performance we’ve allowed to fill our Sundays. When kids “grow up in the church,” we’re often taught that going to church is about downloading a sermon-length set of facts about God and checking off another Christian duty. So it should come as no surprise that the need for church disappears when we start downloading class-length sets of facts about God and praying with our professors instead.

Better yet, the programs at school are even easier than real church – there are no screaming babies, no sermons with outdated references, and no awkward potlucks. No one will ask you to do something uncomfortable or inconvenient, like teach the kindergarten Sunday school or clean the kitchen.

After a semester of church-hopping, I finally settled on a church about 20 minutes away from my school. (Quite the trek, considering the number of churches surrounding it.) Finding a church with messy kids and elderly greeters requires I drive past all the “hip” churches that close down in the summer when all the students leave.

I’ve relearned what church is. It’s getting up at the crack of dawn to scatter Easter eggs on a muddy lawn. It’s hugging old ladies and shaking the hands of old men. It’s hearing a sermon that doesn’t 100% apply to your life right now. It’s pulling weeds and washing windows and it’s being committed to people that aren’t like you. It’s dealing with the messy and the uncomfortable. Pre-class prayers, lights-and-camera speakers, and Christian recording artists can’t give you that. And more importantly, you can’t give them anything.

 

4. You’ll meet your spouse at school.

I’ve got a semester left before I’m doomed to eternal singleness.

I remember my first week at my school like it was yesterday: a group of six freshmen girls, squished onto a tiny dorm room floor, breathlessly explaining our dreams and goals. Our “prayer leader,” a junior (with a boyfriend!) asked us what we wanted to do after we graduated. “Law school,” I started. The girl next to me uneasily glanced at her feet. “Well, I…I’m kind of hoping I won’t graduate.” I looked around the circle, and realized I was the only one that looked confused. “Me too!” The room erupted in agreement and knowing smiles. Turns out, at least three of my fellow freshmen were hoping to get married and quit school before their senior year rolled around.

Four years later, none of them are married. They’re all about to graduate, and based on our limited conversations since then (and some fruitful Facebook stalking), are passionate and accomplished individuals in their fields.

If I can say one thing to all of my fellow Recovering Good Girls, it’s this:

Genesis doesn’t say one-half and one-half becomes one.

You are not half of a human being, navigating the world lopsided until you find your illusory “other half.” You are complete in Him only.

 

5. I hate my Christian school.

(Okay, so maybe this “myth” isn’t very widespread. But I personally know many people that believe it!)

I love my school, even as I criticize its actions or the statements of its leaders.

I’m still figuring this messy life out. I’m still figuring out what I believe and how to express it in a loving and fruitful way.

I was strangled by idols in the middle of the most “Christian” environment I’ve ever lived in, and I found freedom in a God that met me on a bumpy bus ride miles from my school.

But I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything.

I’ve been given incredible opportunities to lead and teach. I’ve learned from wise and godly people. I’ve learned the dirty secrets of a people still learning to admit our own brokenness.

And I’ve learned to love His Church, even when I don’t feel like it.

 

Who are you trying to beat?

My ability to mentally take score is astounding. I’ve become incredibly talented at ranking various accomplishments on a detailed scale, and tallying up everyone’s final grade. It’s the only mental math I’m good at.

It’s a skill I’ve gained solely because of a single word. It’s a word that haunts my imagination and shrouds my dreams.

“Best” is the adjective that trumps all others.

It’s the signifier that you won the competition that perhaps only you knew existed.

It’s the way to demarcate one “best” from all the others.

It’s an exclusive word. There aren’t multiple “bests.”

It’s a word that I have been guilty of elevating above everything else.

It’s a word that often fuels my passion and prompts late nights and long days.

It’s a word that can turn that moment right before you find out if you made the final cut stretch on for days.

My heart races. Races, like my mind, my feet, my ambitions. Not running, racing. Races have winners.

I am guilty of the comparison game – the one where my entire life gets a play-by-play defeat by the ones with neater lives and prettier Instagrams.

I’ve always been competitive, but since my high school days were filled with more AP tests and impressive extracurriculars than sports teams, I rarely did anything where competition was an inherent part of the activity. I could compare English paper grades, but there were too many different classes and standardized tests to come up with a definitive ranking system.

Enter competitive debate in college.

Finally, something where I could win at being smart. Things were clearer – someone won and someone lost. Ranking all the teams over the course of the year was just a matter of doing the math. I was in my element.

But as much as the thrill of victory can give the illusion of joy, the devastation of defeat can feel earth-shattering.

He freed me from the idol that debate success became in my life, but as the sinful human that I am, I’m often tempted to crawl right back into the cage He found me in.

I might not need to be the “best” debater anymore, but it’s all too easy to relapse into the same drug.

Now I need to be the “best” writer, the “best” Christian, the “best” student, the “best” mentor, the “best” leader.

“Best” is a powerful drug – it’ll give you a high, but it always demands more of you to get the next one. All you have is never enough; it keeps asking you to give more time, more energy, and more attention to its purposes. You continually need more of it to get the same high. “Best” doesn’t play around; it requires your total commitment.

So in my 2016 year of Brave, I’ve decided to be brave enough to kill my dream of “best.” If I keep feeding “best” all my gifts and time, I won’t have any left for the better dream: following Him. He is like “best” in this one way: He demands all of me. But unlike “best,” He promises contentment, not dissatisfaction. His doesn’t offer a temporary high – he guarantees a lasting joy.

I’m done bartering my talents and passions for smoke and mirrors.

His kingdom is so radically upside-down that it’s hard not to bring all my conceptions of “best” along with me.

When Paul tells the Corinthians to “run in such a way as to get the prize,” in 1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV), he knows that people are familiar with races. This was the time of the original Olympics, after all. They understood the importance of winning, and they knew that winning a race takes dedication and hard work. But Paul also choose his words carefully. Notice that the verse doesn’t say “run in such a way as to win” or “run in such a way as to beat all the other people.” It says “run in such a way as to get the prize.” Following Christ requires the dedication and endurance of running a race, but it doesn’t involve competition. He goes on to say that “everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training,” (v. 25) and that he does not run “aimlessly,” (v. 26) but with the intent to “get a crown that will last forever” (v. 25).

Paul is encouraging his church to fight the good fight and run the race well, not with the goal of beating others, but with the goal of overcoming their own sinful nature in order to follow Christ.

We have to learn to understand that “winning” doesn’t require any competitors – not in this Kingdom.

Competition has been imbued in my very being, and I need to learn how to untangle “hard work” and “passion” from “beating everyone else.” I need to learn how to run the race in such a way as to win – not by beating others, but by beating myself.

RELEVANT Article: How Christians Should Fight

Go check out my newest: an article on RELEVANT’s website called “How Christians Should Fight.”

It’s on a topic I’m increasingly passionate about: learning how to believe that truth is absolute, while remaining humble and gracious in the discussions I have. It’s about recognizing that while our God is omniscient, we are not. Unless you believe you’re going to end up in Heaven one day and find out that you were one of the maybe two or three people in all of history that was “right” about every social, political, and theological dispute Christians have had, you are going to be wrong about some things on this earth. Truth may be absolute, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been given complete access to it. Check it out here!