CityLights

Oh goodness! This really makes no sense.

I can't sleep. I can't even think about sleep...which is weird considering my late night conversation with a Ms. Leah Shaw had me heading home at two AM and work had me up at six.
Less than four hours of sleep is becoming a habit. Complaining about not ever sleeping has also become a habit.

But right now? Right now I can't sleep. Jesus has awoken me in a literal physical and spiritual sense.

I can finally smell the fragrance of His offering to God. I can smell the sacrifice of God to God for us. I can't quite see the Cross with untainted eyes, but I can hear the faint sound of His footsteps leading Him to Golgotha.

Let me take you through a few passages that, quite literally, ripped my flesh off.

I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions -I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to Me? Do you know what I want? I want justice —oceans of it. I want fairness —rivers of it. That's all I want. That's all I want.
Amos5.21-24msg

It hits me when God says "When was the last time you sang to Me?" I mean, really? How many times do we sing for the person standing next to us in worship, or the person on the street corner, or the attractive specimen across the room, or the worship leader we hope will come up and give us a job by how oh-so in love with Jesus we are (don't act like this doesn't happen), or...or...or. Mmm. I'll get to this thing called a flawless performance in a bit...

It's amazing to me how easily I can sing loud during worship and how rarely I sit at the foot of the Cross realizing Whose blood drips on my white wedding gown.

It seems too often we will come in with a parade proclaiming "WE CAN HELP YOU!" And then we get bored, or tired, or our finances diminish, or our finances even flourish, or we just stop caring, or...or...or. How can we give a glimmer of hope to the hopeless when we ourselves have no hope for them? Get some dang hope because Jesus LIVES IN YOU and He is the hope of salvation and all joy! Plus...we are YOUNG! We have energy to spend. Not many of us have terribly high levels of responsibility upon us right now. A majority of you who read my notes are A.) Single B.) Just out of high school C.) Working part-time D.) Going to school part-time. So what are we waiting for?! Our chances to pass us by until we're tied down with responsibility and can no longer afford to go?

I'm reminded of Lord of the Rings when Bilbo is talking to Gandalf and he says, "I want to see mountains, Gandalf! Mountains!"

Well, "I want to see mountains, Jesus! Mountains!"

...uhm bethany, look outside your window...

Not those type of mountains! I want to see mountains of love. Waves of mercy. Pillars of sacrifice. Thunder booms of praise. Lightning strikes of Jesus. Tornadoes of grace.

But as much as I want to see it happen (and I'm sure some of you feel the same way) just think of what Jesus has to say! I mean, He's tired of us coming into places with a bottlerocket of surprise and leaving the people more abandoned than before. It hurts Him more than it hurts the people because we are GRIEVING His children and turning them off of the Gospel.
These are our religion schemes, these are our pretentious slogans, these are our religion projects.

These things make God vomit.

I was thinking about Moulin Rouge and the wonderful soundtrack all day today and then it hit me...

"How wonderful life is...now you're in the world"

Notice the "you're" is not capital.

Granted, I'm using quite the secular movie to describe God's love for us...but what can I say? God is outside the box and I'm not going to limit Him to Christian music in order to woo me.
It's on the same level as "Do you know the way you move Me?" because it seems so easy to take that song and make it about God, when in fact it's about us.

...it's always been about us to Him. We've ALWAYS been in His gaze. From the beginning of time, to the birth of His flesh, to the crucifying of His life, to the redemption of our sins. It's always been about us. He's always been about loving us and making us the center of His attention -the apple of His eye.

But when we catch that, He says "Okay, now give it away."

I mean, it even says religion God accepts as pure is taking care of orphans and widows. Justice. Seeking justice for whatever unfortunate event that has taken place to make orphans and widows as such. Orphans. Widows. Fairness by not seeing them, or anyone for that matter, melt under burdens or judging them for ANYTHING.

I think by God saying "I want justice, I want fairness" He's saying "I want you to freaking LOVE one another"

Oscar Romero was a genius with his words. Cheers to an onslaught of quotations!!!

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

"We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways."

"When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises."

"Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down."

I'm also reminded of the verse in Psalm51 that says:

Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.
Psalm51.16-17

A flawless performance. Wow. You know, there might be some of you who have been called to be an actor or actress in the center of Hollywood. But when you come to Him, He wants your mask to be removed. All of us act. It's easy. In fact, it's probably the easiest thing we do. We don't want to be vulnerable. We don't want to work through our weaknesses...because that would mean actually confronting them!

Going through the motions looks similar to this:
Wake up. Eat. Go to work. Eat. Go to school. Watch TV. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.Never to have a break in the chain.

Sure, God wants us to wake up with purpose (both in a physical and spiritual way), eat to our health, go to work to serve, go to school for...well...a edumacation I reckon, and uhm...skip the TV, then rest...but God wants more out of us than a monotonous routine. He wants our adventure as much as we want our adventure. He wants us to realize we're on a mission, and He wants us to spend every waking moment accomplishing that mission through His mighty work in us.

Whatever that looks like for you, I'm not sure. Obviously God holds that answer for you and you alone. Only when you act it out will we KNOW you're serious about whatever mission God wants you, specifically (enter name here), to fufill.

It hit me in The I Heart Revolution movie when this man says "I honestly don't think people are called. I think we see something wrong with the world and we go to meet that need."

I've put this off for far to long

...Ahh! Stop with LOTR quotes!

But honestly, I've put off being who I'm meant to be.

My journey begins now.

Watch what God does, and then do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.
Ephesians5.1-2