Flicker and Foundation. Baby Faith.

I've realized over the years that my blogs are not typical by any means. They can be lengthy and cover a variety of topics. (I'm thinking this has to do with my secret desire or rather "need" of writing a book) So bear with me here- I'm swirling with topics and whereas I ought to probably be more simplistic with this writing... I'm compulsive about always attempting to get "everything" out. So uhm.., just stay with me for a bit if you can and I will do my best to have some sense of flow in my thoughts.

lol..

The house is a mess. No it really is... I'm sitting in my office area of the house and I have about twenty or so books stacked up around me. I'm realizing that there are quite a few books that I still need to finish... I'm also realizing that there are only a few books that have made any sort of significant impact on my Faith life. There are times where you come across particular books that "change you," these books can alter a particular way of thinking or sometimes they can just help foster something that was already there. Two books in particular have helped in encouraging what I've already believed for sometime- and these two books are Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile, and the other is The Divine Conspiracy: Discovering our Hidden Life in God.

I must say I have probably mentioned this before- so that's all I'm going to say. lol

I'm becoming more aware of what I believe and why I believe it. Under the same observation I will also suggest that there are very few things that I have "set in stone" in my Faith walk. I think that this is a good thing... my understanding of God and how He works is not outlined by my intellectual reasoning. I don't have to put God in a corner and suggest that He jumps when I tell Him to. I can be open to knowing that God will do and can do anything and everything and that does not have to fall into a pre-made category that I call "my Faith." The Gospel message used to take on a very lengthy understanding and yet now what may had taken pages to describe I've been able to piece together in small sentences. I believe that this is a good thing, there is always more to say and yet sometimes we say more with less. When you say that God is ultimate and Complete. That's all that you need to say- I do not have to explain away what that means (because even then I'm an incomplete, finite being attempting to explain away a fully Divine, completely infinite God) I can say that God is total, that God is omnipresent, transcendent, fully personal and loving and that through his son Jesus he became man in flesh, grew up in the 1st century, started a ministry, died a sinners death as an innocent man. His blood held the power to cross all lines of men and women from all of time to cover their sins and on the third day He rose- he stayed with his followers for a period of over forty days- He left and in His place came the Holy Spirit- the church began as a people looking to follow the Way of their master.

We're right here, right now in the same place- attempting to do the same thing.

We are a part of a new humanity. We are a part of a revolution.

We need to start acting like it.

Surely if you are a church going Christian, you have had plenty of moments where the presence of God has fallen on you. Yet what about the moments outside of church- what about in the everyday, in your walking around the grocery store, in your phone conversation with your troubled cousin, in arguments with your spouse, in the past that you can not let go, in saying that you've turned over a new life and yet you have one hand behind your back holding onto the very thing you just cursed, in deleting your viewing history on the computer so that nobody knows the things going on in your head and in your heart.

If we for even a second believe that God is only in Church buildings then we must examine why we believe that. Could it be because we're more comfortable with living one life there and another life "here." For many of us when we must come alone to our thoughts, then when we deal with the very things that bother us in silence- we're forced to a place of decision and sometimes that means change and change is not always easy. When you look back at two thousand + years of Christianity we see great victories in Faith at work and yet we also see many opportunities and failed experiments.

I sometimes wonder what my position will be...

This isn't me being in a place of not knowing or being too far involved in desiring my own success. I don't believe that I'm too far off from how most people feel and that is that I would like at some point to know where I could best serve and to what capacity. I have had shades of coming to grips with who God is building me up to be, no doubt I have been in my place of passion and when there I have felt more alive than ever before. I refuse to buy into this belief system that we're not built for something in particular- surely each individual can take multiple paths, and take on multiple goals in life and yet I truly believe that we're all built for something in particular and most of life is made up of attempting to figure that "something" out.

The other day I was at work and was involved in a conversation about the concept of "perfect silence." Although this was talked about in a jokingly way I started to think about it at a deeper level as the day passed on. We also talked briefly about quantum physics, and history and politics and its in these conversations that the Christian can become most involved. If you believe that there is a secular and sacred divide in all of life, if you believe that if it is not mentioned in scripture and has yet to be mentioned by your Pastor at your church that it is wrong then you must examine that to a deeper level. Now I'm not talking about things that are contrary to scripture, things that immediately rub against scripture or contradict it entirely- I'm talking about knowing and understanding the God of the Cosmo's, the infinite being that is our creator God to have control over all things and that their is a mystery to be known (and also never to be known) about our God and His ways. It is with teachers that decide to utilize the various systems of thought and the various areas of study (history, literature, mathematics, physics, Biology etc) and work them in a seemingly effortless way into the truth of scripture that I find great promise and gained knowledge. It is not that Christianity, or the church for that matter are reliant upon utilizing things outside of scripture but that when we connect the elements together we are better off. For if something is true in nature, in the world, in the sciences- then we can safely connect (and must connect) these things with Gods truth. If all is His, then we can not and should not separate or categorize life into bins and boxes.

I look at those that debate to no end about things that they consider themselves to be experts of. I watch as each side builds an intellectual wall around themselves, there thoughts and theories constructed like bricks between one another. What a life that must be? A life built around defense and we all know that the best offensive is a great defense. So we built, we divide, we separate and we lose the Gospel. For those who are always at war, will eventually suffer from being worn down and it will be in their moment of much needed rest that someone will knock their foundation out and with it their faith will fall as well. Christianity is not an intellectual exercise, it can be incredible coffee conversation but it is not only that- it must be blood, bone and soul. I love not having to be on the attack, on the defense- surely I get upset when I come up against an ignorant view, a path that someone has taken and that they support with very little information or life experience at hand. Of course I get riled up in these situations and yet at the same time- I'm just able to feel at rest about things, because I'm well aware that I will never know "it all" and I'm okay with that.

My God is bigger than my answers, or lack of answers. My God is bigger than your questions. Even if you truly think you have me cornered- my God can not be. I can be at rest even if your not.

I do not have to put up an aggressive front, I'd rather build relationships with others that tear their views down- an individual will be impaired of experiencing Kingdom truth if they are too busy defending themselves or feeling the verbal tear down from another (who of course is suggesting that they are doing it for the others own good) How can you learn to know and love God if the person who is supposedly representing Him is taking a machete of words to your legs?

So where was I? Perfect silence...

It was Thursday morning, Tina and I drove to the our first ultrasound for the pregnancy. I'd be lying if I were to say that I were not a bit nervous.

Hopefully I'll be able to describe this experience- my inability to write lately has been frustrating.

As we entered into the lab room, my knees felt like they were going to slide down to my ankles. I gripped the book that I brought with me, and prayed...and prayed... and prayed. It felt like forever. The room was dark, and everything felt like last year. The monitor blinked black and white and as the lab assistant left the room- I could see Tina's emotions building and I was doing everything I could to help support her. The assistant came back and the process began. Now although my Hope relies on the power of God- I also could not help but watch as plot points were exercised all over the monitor- I could not help but get sucked into the significance of knowing that this harmless looking game of connect the dots could unleash a flurry of emotions in the waking minutes. That if you allow things to get down to simple dots on a screen, and that if it is all by chance and by "freak" occurrence- dots and mumbles, hmms and silence mean everything. I will not suggest that the mums, the hmms, the hrrms and the perfect silence did not affect me. I was frozen to the screen, Tina's eyes were no doubt staring into mine. Knowing that if something besides happy tones came out of the associates mouth that I would no doubt show dread in my eyes. The machine hummed, the wait seemed forever- moving around, poking around, my thoughts went back to last year I was attempting to remember the abbreviations put on the screen at that time- in my efforts to just feel at ease I had to put myself into last years position- trying to recollect every thought, every motion of the assistant.

When you go through what we went through. Nothing will ever be the same.

The assistant moved on top of Tina's belly- the assistant took picture after picture, and the silence shifted from wall to wall and got caught up in the glow of the video monitor. Like sonar seeking out life... like heat sensors seeking out a signature. My prayers kept pressing, my heart kept racing and Tina kept staring at me.

Then a flicker.

A flicker. That's all we needed to see. A flicker- the heartbeat of our little one, the heart beat of our baby, the heart beat of Gods grand design. It was right then and there that I realized more than ever before that God can not be boxed in, or controlled. Or that we can "figure it all out" because as I stared at that monitor, as I stared at this beautifully complex design- and I knew that, that flicker was not weak but strong and that, that flicker came across as Morse code: "I'm alive, I'm alive and well" There was no distress, just life- vibrant, beautiful life. A baby doing exactly what he or she is supposed to do- grow...grow...grow. For when I suggest that the heartbeat of an 8 week old baby is a flicker-you might connect it with a weak signal- but against the grain of a black and white screen, with the history that Tina and I have had. Well a flicker is all that we needed to see last year but didn't. A flicker is the difference between life and death. It is in the perfect silence that you might find yourself alone with your thoughts, and it is in the perfect silence that even a flicker can be heard.

Hope. Hope that measured out to 165 Bpm which is exactly where we're supposed to be. Hope. Hope that can be measured by the words "everything is coming along just right" Hope. Hope that can be found in bedtime prayers, and lab room anxiety. Hope. Hope that is found in my eyes tearing up with joy, my wifes trembling hand and an assistants voice saying "that flicker- that's the heart beat" Thank God.

I thank God that this baby is alive and well. I will continue to pray for this child, because I have very little more that I can do. All I can do is support my wife, and by supporting her- support this little miracle. A flicker doesn't seem like much- but it is everything right now. I have never felt like that before- never. Moving from anxiety to excitement. Seeing this baby on screen, seeing this vital little child on screen and knowing that God is taking care of him or her right here, and right now. Well that's everything. I'm not really sure how else to say this. My understanding of how God works does not have to be completely "put together" or figured out- because all I have to do is point to a monitor that shows a little baby inside my wife and right then and there... I can rest in knowing that I don't understand everything but I do understand that we serve and live in relationship with a powerfully loving God who does great, and amazing things.

Simply put, I have never felt this way before. I have never felt my heart race that way before. Upon hearing and this is the baby and you look like your coming along well. Well those words between the hrrms, and the hmms became gold. Those words broke the gasp of anxiety riding up in my chest to form the words that exited my mouth...

"Praise God. Thank you Lord."

Go in Peace.

Lance