On tiny flowers and warriors...

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23

All sort of bizarre things are happening to me and the people close to me these days and I find myself left with two questions "What does this mean?" and "How can I display all of the above?"

You see, for the longest time I missed the part with "the fruits OF the Spirit." and I thought they were something I must do my best to display or I was not fit to bear the name Christian- Christ follower.

Every spring I have the great joy of looking at my flowers fight their way out of earth, but this year I decided to go in my garden every morning and observe their progress. Some of them look so tiny, fragile and bent in half. Yet if you give them a few days you literally see the ground split in half in the place where the tiny flower pushed its way out.

And I came to understand that displaying "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" has nothing to do with performance but it has everything to do with endurance. Observing my flowers everyday, I noticed that in some days they appear so fragile and bent that it almost looks painful to look at them. But my flowers don't drop to the ground, they keep pushing the earth that covered them only a month ago. They endure so they can blossom one day. 

I never knew how to do that. Nobody taught me how to deal with pain in this world. It just came at me. So I helped myself, and I started to run as fast as I could and as far away as I could, because I always thought I am too tiny and too fragile to endure it. But I haven't seen any of my little flowers run away or lay on the ground and die. In the same way nobody taught me how to endure, nobody taught them how to run. 

This morning I had to face a painful moment. It sprang on me out of nowhere and it felt as if it hit me in the chest. My first instinct was to put on a song to block out my thoughts and have a good cry. But I remembered my flowers and I stood put. I told my soul "I know it hurts, but it is just a wave. Stay still and let it pass over you.Not every wave is tears worthy." So, I held it together and stood in my place. I realized a few minutes later that I was peaceful and that immediately produced joy in me and brought a smile to my face. 

We want to produce the fruits of the Spirit, but I realized today that perhaps we are so busy running from pain that the Spirit has no time to produce anything in us. This is because we are either busy striking back at the source of our pain, or we already leave a cloud of dust behind us in the rush to get away from it. And because we know they should be present in our life for "by their fruits you will know them" (Matthew 7:20), we either struggle to produce them on our own, or we we imitate them by trying to copy those we believe got there already. And time and time again we fail to learn the courage of enduring, of staying put when it is uncomfortable, of allowing a wave to just pass over us. 

I talk a lot about warriors these days, because they fascinate me. Why? Because those who earned this name are the ones who endured the darkness of the earth covering them and day by day pushed their way out of it. They refused to run. They just sat there and allow one wave, two waves three waves of pain pass over them, until you will see them stand when facing a tsunami. 

For months now I am singing a song to God called "With everything", but I didn't have a clue what I was singing. I might as well have sang to Him "With everything that's left after I cleared off from here." 

We all know the verse from Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God," but we miss the first few verses from the Psalm in which it is basically being explain to us those circumstances in which we should be still:

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." Psalm 46:1-3)

Is it just me, or do these circumstances sound a lot like a tsunami? God could've said anything before the words "and know that I am God" and yet He said to us "Be still". 

"Stay put, do not run, hang in there. Endure this earth which seems to crush you, allow this wave to pass over you, push one more time today, and I will make you a warrior whose answer in front of pain will be love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I will make you stand even when faced with a tsunami."

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." (1 Peter 5:10)

I'm done with running

"I'm free! I'm free!" my heart is screaming

While anchors hold me down

From under waves that push me under

I pray "Don't let me drown!"

Running is what has brought me here

Running from the me I hide

I thought the running will surely prove it

That she is gone and that she died.

But she's not gone, she's still pursuing

My days, my dreams, the boat I sailed

Through pouring clouds of guilt and pain

I heard "I'm here and you failed!"

"You are not me!" I shouted

And then jumped overboard

I rather drown a thousand times

Than be like her again, dear Lord.

I know I'm not Your Jonah

I don't expect a fish

I just know that these murky waters

Are not Your plan, nor my true wish.

"What do you want, My girl?" I hear You

"Why all this pointless endless running?

Can you not see at all, My daughter?

I made you free and yet you're dying."

"You're free! You're free!", I hear You whisper

There's nothing wrong with you

You are just learning and you're growing

My girl, you are not split in two!

Yes, you still fall and yes, you're failing

But in all that there's nothing wrong

The falling teaches you to stand

And failing's teaching you a new song."

I hear that song while You are speaking

And it keeps saying that I'm free

That one like me should not be running

That there's no split of "her and me".

So I rise up from underneath

And swim back to the shore

And I embrace the me I was scorning

For now I know she makes me whole.

And we will overcome together

What's haunting her and makes me run.

They thought they'll make us hate each other

But we are one or we are none!

Love Warrior

“My courage will come from knowing I can handle whatever I encounter there -- because I was designed by my Creator to not only survive pain and love but also to become whole inside it. I was born to do this. I am a Warrior.”  Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior: A Memoir

Some days my heart is filled with love

And on others it leaks pain

But I carry on, Father

For nothing is in vain.

These two are friends of mine and teachers

And shaped me, into me

To run away because it costs me

Would mean forgetting I am free

And I am free because they freed me

From all the running, guilt and fear

This pain and love You brought me, Father

Have taught me that You're always near.

And I look closely dear Father

At all the work they do in me

The way that they complete each other

And open all of me to see.

And what I see just makes me wonder

Why was I running all along

When love was teaching me about kindness

And pain was showing me I'm strong?

But now I see their purpose, Father

That's why I'm calling them my friends

For pain has turned me into a fighter

And love into a pair of hands.

My hands just want to caress others

The hurt, the lost, the broken ones...

I want to fight as pain has taught me

For all Your daughters and Your sons...

So thank You, Father, I am grateful

For sending these two friends my way

Help me to love like love has taught me

And fight for kindness everyday.

Why I remain in Him

"You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:3-5)

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." (John 15:9-12)

"My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:27-29)

When Matthew 11 stopped me in my tracks today, my thoughts were "You talk about a yoke You give us, but it never felt like a yoke to me. It felt more like a warm blanket that you placed on my too exhausted soul after I tried so hard to be good for You..." The my next thoughts was "abide" so I went to John 15.

He starts by explaining how abiding works and that it works because it has always worked between Him and The Father. Why? Because it is not based on one of Them trying their very best to please the other. It is all natural and simple because it is relational. It is based on something that is already there, freely given and completely accepted- Their love for each other.

That is why The Father says about The Son "This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17) 
And that is why The Son never questions The Father's love and He knows what He was entrusted: "As The Father loves Me, so I have loved you"; "My Father has entrusted everything to Me."
Why? Because they remain in each other based on Their love for one another. They don't strive to remain, they just do it out of love. The Son doesn't sit there asking Himself "How can I make sure I remain in The Father?" He just knows He is in The Father. Remaining is not a process for Them. It is just who They are because of their relationship and what they are for each- "I am The Father", "I am The Son".

This is what Jesus was trying to explain to us. The Vine never questions or doubts Its fruitfulness because It knows and relies on The Gardener's hands. Jesus simply wants us, out of love for Him to replicate the relationship. He wants our remaining in Him, to be because of our relationship with Him and what we are for each other- "I am The Son", "I am a child of God because of You". It is that simple. For as long as you remain aware of this, you remain. You don't have to make yourself remain, you just do because it is all relational.And therein comes the rest.
Why does He want us to replicate the relationship? Because only He truly knows The Father. And He loves The Father so much that He wants us to "truly know" Him like The Son does. 

So where do we go wrong? How do we become so weary and burdened that we need an intervention? How do we start in love for The Son and one day end up here, crashing?
From personal experience, I think that this happens because we forget the beauty and simplicity and trust of Their complete love for one another. And we fall back on loving Him with a human kind of love. The only problem is that the human kind of love is selfish and insecure most of the times. It is selfish because it focuses on the self: "I love you so much that look what I've done for you..."
And it is insecure because it always needs reassurance and proof, so inevitably it always ends up focusing on performance and keeping scores: "If you love me, prove it, do this for me..." or "Remember when, out of love, I did that for you and you didn't reciprocate...?"

Jesus always talked about how much The Father loved Him and everything Jesus did was a reply to The Father's love for Him. He was trying to teach us God's love, the love that never focuses on the self and makes the object of their love the focus of everything that motivates their actions. He wants our actions to be motivated by His love for us, not our love for Him.
But we forget His kind of love, that love that drew us in the first time we encountered it. The feelings remain because we carry on speaking of our love for Him, but our actions become motivated by a human love that focuses not on His Persona, but on how much we love Him. And we carry on like this for a while without even realising that we are branches without a Vine; trying to produce fruit out of a selfish insecure love. And we try and try until we fall down exhausted and tell Him that what He is asking is too hard. Completely forgetting that the only thing He asked was for us to remain in His love and to allow that love to flow to others. But when we end up in this place, according to His good habit, He steps in again and beckons "Come to Me, My weary one, and I will give you rest. Let me teach you..." And then He starts again, "Remember how The Father loves Me? Look at Me and remember- that is how I love you. And beloved...I already proved it with My own life. So remember My love for you next time you tell Me how much you love Me, or when you're demanding proof. I love you as I am loved- completely. Now rest..."

That's why His yoke feels like a warm blanket on my exhausted soul. There's safety and complete acceptance here and a love that just flows over me without asking me to prove myself. So I remain here and I make His warm blanket my abiding place. Not because He asked me to or to prove my love for Him. I remain because He loves me like He is loved by The Father, fully and completely.