love is a good reason to move

there are many reasons to move. i think of all the reasons i've moved in the past. i've moved for fear. i've moved for guilt. i've moved for ambition. i've moved for escape.

what got me thinking about this is the decision tim and i recently made to live in the same city. this means i'm gonna be moving. and when folks look at me and ask, "What takes you to Madison?" i will answer truthfully, "Love."

and i see that if there was ever a good reason to move it is only this: love.

whether i move to another state or just move my hands in service and my priorities to prayer... in all of these things, i want to be someone who moves for love.

for the love of my Jesus and His scarred hands and broken heart. for love of His bride.

there's this connection between intimacy and mission, which the 24/7 prayer movement has beautifully embodied. see, when we settle down in the secret place and the divine embrace, learning to know the subtleties of His voice and seeing His gaze on us, then there's a fuel to move. we catch fire and we become people on a mission - to our families, to the corner store, to our universities, to all nations. we become people who move for and out of love.

yeah, love is a good reason to move. i want to be known as someone who moves for love.

Jesus, I trust you.

We're praying into this theme during our 24-7 Prayer week right now. It's also one of the biggest themes of my last year with Jesus. The prayer, "Jesus, I trust you" has become a constant refrain, a giant reset button, in my life as I seek to take this call to discipleship seriously. And early on, I learned that it's Tim's primary prayer, too. It's a powerful prayer. Tonight at TOW I'm going to explore this idea of trusting Jesus with the girls, too. I'm convinced of it's necessity. I am convinced that it brings freedom.

I was just revisiting the book Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning and would like to share this excerpt with you here:

The stakes here are enormous, for I have not said in my heart, "God exists," until I have said, "I trust you"... Against insurmountable obstacles and without a clue as to the outcome, the trusting heart says, "Abba, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with boundless confidence, for you are my loving Father."

Though we often disregard our need for an unfaltering trust in the love of God, that need is the most urgent we have. It is the remedy for much of our sickness, melancholy, and self-hatred. The heart converted from mistrust to trust in the irreversible forgiveness of Jesus Christ is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear...

The decisive (or what I call the second) conversion from mistrust to trust -- a conversion that must be renewed daily -- is the moment of sovereign deliverance from the warehouse of worry. So life-changing is this ultimate act of confidence in the acceptance of Jesus Christ that it can properly be called the hour of salvation...

The grace-laden ac of trust is the landmark decision of life outside of which nothing has value and inside of which every relationship and achievement, every success and failure derives its final meaning. Unbounded trust in the merciful love of the redeeming God deals a mortal blow to skepticism, cynicism, self-condemnation, and despair. It is our decisive YES to Christ's command, "Trust in God and trust in me."

The basic premise of biblical trust is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, this kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials. Abraham models the essence of trust in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: to be convinced of the reliability of God.

everybody is sick of love

Except for the girl dancing slowly
Folded in the arms
Of her gentle boy
Her eyes closed in precious disbelief.

So I am watching the joy on her face,
You have never seen such pure peace and delight,
Because if you had,
Your eyes would have been closed too.

(Or maybe you have.)

But thanks to her,
This broken world was briefly mended
For one fleet night before it ended.

-Linford Detweiler, 2000

a disciple who will live that way

in entering into this missional calling and lifestyle, i've spent a lot of time asking the question, "God, do you want me to work?" and the definition of work here has been this: (1) acting as an employee for an employer in the public marketplace (2) having a career, preferably in the field of your college education (3) having a 40-hour work week and (4) going to a place to work and then coming home again. i suspect this is what most people think of when they think of working.

but then jenn corrected me. "that's not quite the right question to ask," she said. "God WILL have you working. the question is 'what is the work You have for me to do, God?'" and then she explained that i have to be willing to hear and obey the answer, whether the answer is to get a job (in the traditional way described above) or to do something entirely different.

i don't own the responsibility for the outcome (pay check, provision, bills paid, material possessions increasing). i only own the responsibility for obedience.

no one can serve two masters (she will love the one and hate the other), and i want to serve Him. He says THEREFORE do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. because maybe when we're worrying about how we're gonna pay the bills and get food on the table and get back-to-school clothes, something shifts in us and we're serving money again. we can't serve God and money. (see matthew 6:24-25). THEREFORE do not worry.

so i'm asking God what the work is that He has for me to do. i work for Him, after all. He's my boss and my daddy. so if He gives me the work to do, will He not also provide the wages?

He knows what i need before i ask. He clothes the lilies and feeds the birds and i'm worth more than they are to Him. when i seek His kingdom first, i'm choosing to serve Him, not money. i'm choosing to believe Him when He says all those other things will be added to me as well.

i want to be driven to see His kingdom come, not driven to keep my head above water financially. i want to make choices about employment and how i structure my days based on obedience to the nudges of the Holy Spirit, not based on financial planning.

because the foundation has been laid, and it is Jesus, and i want to build on it with indestructible materials, not perishable ones. so that when the fire comes to test it, it'll be found still standing (i cor 3:11-13).

it seems that i'm hearing from Him, more and more, that the work He has for me to do has a lot to do with prayer, and missional engagement with cities, and discipling younger women, and making home for people. and that is work.

the worker, He says, is worth her wages (luke 10:7). He didn't say i'd live in a spacious downtown loft and have a fridge full of gourmet food. He didn't even say i'd have a car or new clothes. maybe i'll eat a lot of beans and rice and have rent money available just 2 days before it's due. but he said not to worry. and i want to be a disciple who is willing to live that way.

so this is what's rattling around in my head lately. i asked Him to teach me about these things, because i sense that i need breakthrough in this area. it seems that He always answers prayers to be taught. the Holy Spirit is SO much better than any Christian Living or Self-Help book. always.

is this irresponsibility? or is this discipleship?

Brooke & Chelsea

Brooke & Chelsea
Originally uploaded by sparrow photography

this woman
has become my friend
my co-worker
the one with whom i
battle for more freedom (our own and others)
sing around the house
share the bathroom
learn womanhood
so glad for what God has created in the space between us
this year

free-write thursday

there are some days when i fail miserably at this business of being the royal priesthood that He has called me. and in the days following my offering to God of myself to be used however and with whomever He pleases, those are the days when i am short-tempered and irritable and everything inside me is screaming "get away from me because i can't stand you for another second" because they are drunk drunk drunk and talking like fools while we're trying to make sugar cookies in the kitchen or because they are pacing and wringing hands and generally following me around like puppy dogs needy for every ounce of attention they can squeeze out of me until my soul feels sucked dry. and they are compulsive liars who spin stories so severely distorted, contradictory and confusing that i want to grab them by the neck and say, "listen, i see through you, you are a fraud, would you cut the crap?" and then i shake my head and i think to myself, "i can't believe we used to live like this all the time."

but where is the attitude of christ in that? and what does that command to die to yourself and to lay down your life for the sake of the gospel play in? i fear i'm missing something here because inside i feel polluted and disgusting with the attitude i have until i'm forced to the emotional edge and i have to ask jenn if i can skip the love feast in order to go lay in bed a while and pray over myself, seizing in faith all the good things He's promised over me and all the fruit of the spirit that is more true about me than all the criticism, judgement, and irritation in me. and even though i walk away from such prayer sessions feeling often still low and oppressed, within hours or days he is always always faithful to answer, deliver, lift up.

how unworthy, how unworthy i am. and when mandolin tim was over yesterday morning and he was sharing his heart with me, which is repentance for him, he was talking about this prayer that they call the Jesus prayer, which simply says, "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." he was talking about praying it before he ever opens his mouth to speak or to act out of whatever goodness he thinks he may possess because we are always walking on holy ground and we are always that woman who agreed with Jesus when He said "the dogs don't get to eat the food from the table" and she was happy just to receive some crumbs, which He then gave. so while danny -- so anointed -- led us in worship i sunk into the lowliness that is a mercy-hungry state and i tried out the jesus prayer and things shifted in me again. namely, He became proper in perspective again. and there was all this singing about freedom -- my favorite song line "for it's only in Your will that I am free" -- which has always been to me about surrender. and would you believe me if i told you that at some point during worship i became conscious of a presence by my side, even though there were three empty seats between me and the next person, i could feel the presence like that of another body even though my eyes were closed. i thought to myself that i was worshiping alongside an angel and there i lay down my crown before the feet of that worthy and slain Lamb, singing holy holy holy along with the angel armies. and it was after that time of thick worship that grandma jan said, "i think we were worshiping with angels tonight" and i told her i think she's right.

you know that worshiping with my family here at the SBR is one of the sweetest pleasures i have ever known? it is. and there are other things, too, like the baking of cupcakes with chelsea in the kitchen and then delivering them to a few neighborhood houses just because. and there's the pleasure that i'm learning to lean into of seizing every opportunity to pray with others, boldy for healing and vision and whatever else is needed. you can't be afraid to ask, you can't be afraid of taking up too much room or annoying anyone. because people need people and where two or more are gathered jesus is there and the prayer of a righteous man really is powerful and effective. so if crystal comes to me and says, "i'm not sure if this is really anything, but i think i need to ask for prayer," that means we'll get it set up or do it on the spot and we'll hunker down and quiet ourselves before our Daddy to listen for His voice so that we can pray into His will and His heart for her and we trust that He will give her in that time exactly what is needed. period. because He makes zero mistakes and He is always good. it's time we start believing him.

i've been thinking about how i'd like to be salty. chelsea is salty to me. she can find you any scripture passage in about two seconds flat because she spends a lot of time surfing through the pages of her tattered, pen-marked Bible, and often she scribbles its verses down on index cards and other scraps of paper and carries them around with her everywhere. she can quote it all and apply it to any conversation; it just rolls right off her tongue like the most natural thing because she's hidden it in her heart. and i want to be like that. i want to have that word so near to me that i don't have to use the concordance in the back to find it and i don't have to grasp for my own words when i pray because the very words of God will be there instead.

there's this other thing that's got me thrilled, which is that tomorrow night, late, tim will be rolling into town and here he will remain until sometime monday, which is one of the sweetest things i can imagine. the anticipation of seeing his face and holding his hand and being held in his embrace is enough to put me in tears. because this man is like home home home to me, more and more all the time, and i sometimes stand in stunned disbelief that Papa loves me that much; that He loves me tim-sized. so i don't even know what we'll do and i don't particularly care, except that at one point we'll go to a family gathering to celebrate a new kitchen and let the family look tim over to be sure he is suitable (an examination he will undoubtedly pass).

in other news...

do you know that jamie and i threw a dinner party for the girls at The Other Way this week? they got a bit dressed up and we set a long table and made them an italian feast to eat. and they loved it. they loved it. they are princesses and they are learning to know God's heart in such a way that one day soon they will move through this world like women who always had a perfect and loving dad (which in the earthly realms they have not had at all), with all the grace, self-value, assurance, and stability that bestows. and they're in the school of prayer because they're practicing crying out to Him to show Himself to them. they're amazing.do you know that also this week the whole SBR crew headed down to U of M to join them in their 40 Days of Prayer event and to facilitate a conversation about prayer as lifestyle? and in that prayer room i prayer napped and also interceded for campuses and all of this is a foreshadowing of sorts because campuses and i are going be getting a lot more familiar in the upcoming year (which is a separate blog post for another day).

mostly this is about this: i am my Beloved's and He is mine.

and that's about all she wrote.
for now.

miracles in the inmost parts

the most significant miracles you do in my life, God, occur in the depths, in the secret and hidden places where You have so rearranged me that i am brand new. You have re-laid my very foundations. and to a watching world, I may seem at first the same. it is not until we get down to the core, tracing the pathways of my life to its root causes, that the mark of Your Spirit on me can be seen. it is in the secret places that one might begin to see that all my lifestyle choices, my language, my laughter are authentic expressions of a new self, not just the striving to do/be some idealized self. it's my true nature; it is not posing. and that is the greatest miracle of all: that when i took You at your word, saying, "i believe you, God, when You say my life has been exchanged for Christ and I am an entirely new creation," then i let go of control and You undid me. i don't know how to bear testimony to this healing and redemption; it is often too deep, too subtle, too personal to portray to others. but i want to brag, God, about the miracle that You've made of my heart and mind. You knock my socks off.

the power to transform our motivation is one of the most exciting dimensions of the Christian experience and has always been one of the greatest, sparkling proofs of the gospel.
--Pete Greig, The Vision & The Vow, pg 150

also among those to whose inner life i am allowed close enough proximity, i see that You are working these miracles in their inmost parts as well. something breaks loose in her and her countenance changes. something clicks for him and his posture is new. with the precision of a master craftsman You prune and tweak and fill in and cover over, working from the core outward, with patience and dedication. because You don't just want us to conform to an image, You want us to become the likeness of that image. and i think that's really beautiful, and generous, and... miraculous.

you don't have to go this deep with us. but, as with the three hebrews thrown into a fiery furnace because they declared allegience to You, You also deliver us through it with not so much as a whiff of smoke clinging to their unburned clothing. You are not content for Your kids to be the walking wounded. this mercy astounds me.

The Order of the Mustard Seed

there's this quiet, underground society, still thriving. it was established in 1740. it has always been composed of ordinary men and women in all spheres of life. they are scattered across continents. they will live and die for Jesus' name.

and tonight about 20 of them were in our living room.

these are friends who decided that they wanted to make vows to God in the company of one another to devote themselves to three simple rules of life:

1) be true to Christ
2) be kind to others
3) take the gospel to the nations

it's sorta like marrying Jesus.

we shared a meal (oh the warmth and coziness in the house tonight!) and then sat down together in a circle in the living room to hear tell of how the three-fold vow has impacted the lives of those who are in The Order.

it's a great group of people and the kingdom of God is manifesting in such lovely and unexpected ways in each pairing of people (e.g., pub church, CPx, home-making, prayer room planting, crossing guard ministry, adoption, bearing witness in the secular workplace).

but what they all attest to is this: that from the day they took that vow the intentions of their heart have been reoriented. they are now pointed in a different direction. as their rings say, "None of us lives for himself." as they have asked themselves these three questions each day and striven to be faithful to them, their lives are taking on new form.

so there's a group of us reading The Vision & The Vow by Pete Greig, the book which fleshes out more fully the values and implications of this vow. and very likely a bunch of us will be initiated into The Order very shortly by joining with this underground society in taking the vow.

my heart and life resonate with the substance of this vow, this order. and i know that i want in. it's just a matter of when and with whom to take the vow.

this morning at bedside baptist church

there are days for staying in bed until noon. maybe we can call it - if it occurs on a sunday morning - attending bedside baptist church. though i actually mean it; i did have church right here in my bed.

first, we (and by "we" i mean God and I) studied and reflected on ephesians 4, romans 12, and 1 cor 12-14 and the subject of spiritual gifts and the five-fold office of the church. here's a little bit of what we were learning...

according to 1 Cor 12:27-30, in the church, there are:

• FIRST OF ALL apostles - those who make initial contact with newbies who have not yet heard the name of Christ; who establish initial churches (simple gatherings of people in the name of Jesus)
• SECONDLY, prophets -- those who speak the heart of God over the new church to strengthen it and encourage it for what lies ahead
• THIRD, teachers -- those who deepen the believers in their knowledge of the gospel and the nature of God
• THEN workers of miracles and those having gifts of healing -- those who demonstrate the power of the gospel in individual lives and set people free from bondage
• THEN all the other gifts to fill in the gaps -- discernment, administration, helping, tongues, service, wisdom, knowledge, faith, encouragement

also this morning at bedside baptist church, we read several chapters in a book about courtship. i laughed when i read this sentence: "a direct correlation exists between emotionally unhealthy singles and singles who resist courtship, embracing and defending dating instead." i laughed because this was me. the very fact that i am reading a book about courtship with only minimal smirking and a posture of teachable-ness is a marker of my emotional healing. i would have scorned such a book a few years ago. it's not that tim and i have even been using the word Courtship to talk about what we're doing, but as i was reading the principles of this book today, I can see that we are living out what the author is prescribing (well, except for the recommendations about precisely how many hours we can spend alone together per phase and whether or not we're allowed to hug).

i remember back to a time about a year and a half ago when i was mired in a pile of relationship books and articles trying to figure out why my relationship was so hopelessly stuck and i so unceasingly restless within it; hoping that if i worked hard enough i could figure out how to make my relationship work and thereby avoid pain. and into that swirl of confusion and fear, God whispered, "brooke, do you want to trust your books or do you want to trust me?" and i said, "i choose you, God." since then the holy spirit has been my teacher in all things, but especially in the school of relationships/intimacy, starting with teaching me how to be a wife of Jesus. it's ironic to see how He's schooled me according to the principles i'm now reading in this book. i guess that just bears testimony to the presence of the holy spirit in it.

girlfriends who are still single or struggling in their relationships have been lately asking me, in regards to tim, if it has been worth waiting for. to this i respond, wholeheartedly, "YES!" but then i add, "my only regret is that i didn't wait more gracefully. i wish i hadn't created so many ishmaels along the way."

we also spent some time in bedside baptist church this morning journaling about some dreams in my heart and putting them before God. these are four roles i would like to have characterize me, and which i would like to further develop:
1) making home
2) spiritual direction (including hearing the voice of God)
3) inner healing prayer
4) narrative photography
i was telling tim last night on the phone that i would like to seek further training/education in these areas through some really specific means. and he said, "but brooke, whether you get all that training or not, you already ARE those things. you're already walking in it." oh. i guess it's good to have people like tim around to point those things out to me before i lay down hundreds of dollars in a quest to somehow become more legitimate. IF i seek further training in these things, it should be out a heart that just wants to be refined and supported, rather than made into something it previously wasn't.

lastly, we laid out our requests before God in the area of finances. this included, but is not limited to: desire to see my substantial student loan debt eliminated, fear of returning to the work place and losing my soul in the process, a latent and perhaps unreasonable desire to be completely provided for, nervousness about the costs of moving and paying rent again, taking the plunge of audacious tithing even when i feel like i can't afford it, etc. i wrote them all down because i know God will show Himself faithful in all of these areas and if i record them, i can testify later to how He answers.

and then, we got up and had breakfast. two over-easy eggs with buttered "rye-free rye" bread, half a green apple with sunflower seed butter, a small glass of superfood green juice, and a couple cups of french press ethiopian coffee with vanilla soy creamer. mmmmmmm.

now, we will go take a shower and put on day clothes.

happy sabbath.