Psalm 12 - Unconditionally

Unconditional- total, absolute, unrestricted, unreserved, with no conditions or limits.

That word has been in the forefront of my thoughts. I’m beginning…no, not really beginning. I am continuing a journey. I don’t know that you ever really LEAVE the journey because if it is your passion you really can’t…your heart won’t let you. But sometimes you reach those times where it doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere. It is in those times that it is the most difficult to believe, to trust, to wait, and to not settle into a place of complacency; but instead keep the fires of passion burning awaiting the opportunity to proceed. Then paths clear, opportunities come…and you risk venturing onward. What is the risk? For me pursuing my dreams and passion involve the word unconditional. It means laying your heart out there totally, absolutely, unreservedly, with no limits…which is risking being hurt, not just a little but to the degree that you have laid it out there…totally, absolutely, no limits. What is the alternative? It is to settle for something less and always wonder what could have been. It is to allow fear to win and have regrets. It is to never experience the fullness for which you were created in this life. It is to not trust and never experience the joy of a shared journey. All of those things to me are far worse than the risk. I picture a turtle lugging around that heavy shell. Anytime anything in any way threatens them they just shrink back into that impenetrable fortress of protection. It is heavy and cumbersome. It slows the journey. Even when they do emerge the only things exposed are their legs and head. He doesn’t share the shell with anyone…he lives alone. I suppose in my own way I could choose to live hesitantly with that shell of protection surrounding my vulnerably exposed heart. I could proceed so cautiously that I never seem to get anywhere or even settle so that I never really get started at all. Out of fear of rejection I could choose to journey alone. Now I think of the word unacceptable. I can’t live that way, my passion won’t allow it. I am choosing to proceed unconditionally trusting that the One who has created this passion within will direct its journey. I am choosing to risk unconditionally in order to experience the joy of passion lived out fully. I am choosing to trust and love unconditionally in order to experience the joy of the journey shared with those God has chosen to walk beside me.

Psalm 11 - Those Three Words

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

These lyrics intrigued me. He never actually says what those three words are, but the lyricist knew that he didn’t have to say what they were. Most of us would realize that the three words that would convey the emotion described in the song were “I love you”. How is it possible to say that too much? Shouldn’t we communicate our love to those we care deeply about? Can we do that to excess? I suppose we could find other words to use, but do we need to? Don’t these words say it best? If they don’t, then why don’t they? Why have they lost their meaning? Have they really lost their meaning or is it just that we have been careless with them and used them flippantly so that they don’t carry the same depth of meaning? Saying “I love the color green” is way different then saying “I love you” to someone that I care deeply about. I think that I am careful about who I say that to. I don’t just say it casually. I don’t use it nonchalantly at the end of a conversation with a friend. But, when I do “love” someone, I say it a lot. Do I need to? Should I just assume that if I’ve said it once or twice that they should just know that I love them? Should my actions speak louder than my words? I have friends that I care deeply about…. I do love them. Where do I draw the line so that the phrase retains the depth of meaning for which it was created? There aren’t a lot of other ways to say it succinctly. I don’t really have a lot of answers. I can’t control what society has done to degrade the meaning of “those three words”. It makes me sad to think that when I do say them to someone that they may not be enough because something has been lost in their misuse through time. Upon reflection, my hope is that “those three words” will be enough because the recipients of my love will have heard it from my heart, seen it in my eyes, felt it in my touch and experienced it in our relationship.

Psalm 10 - Pass Me the Remote

Sometimes I wonder why life can’t be as simple as a television show. In sitcoms everything is neatly packaged to be wrapped up in a half hour, less than that if you take out the commercials. Other shows solve most problems in the course of a season. They may end with a cliffhanger that carries an answered dilemma over until the next year, but even that storyline is revealed usually within the first episode. The whole premise of “24” is that it operates in “real time”. So, even though it is 24 episodes long over the course of the year, all of the drama is basically wrapped up in a 24 hour time period. The writers and producers of “Lost” have set a time frame to unveil their mysteries. They don’t want to string us along more than three more years. Interestingly enough I have found that many real life situations string me along much longer. I wish that I could fast forward to the conclusion. I wish that I could TIVO my way to answers. Real life, the kind that has 24 hours in succession daily, doesn’t work that way. There have been cliffhangers that still remain unanswered. Some never will be. I can’t always write the script of my life to make it funny when I need to laugh to heal the pain. I can’t switch channels if the drama gets too intense and expect that I will instantly find relief. I can choose to push the pause button and just not deal with things, but at some point you have to unpause and choose to deal with it if you want to be able to move forward in life. Often I find myself, like King David, crying out to God and saying, “Why can’t you just tell me what to do?” Many days I wished that God would just send me a letter, pass me a note, write it down in black and white….just give me the directions and I will follow them. I know He gave me His Word. It is called the Bible. But even then there have been many times when I just wish that I could look in the concordance in the back of my Bible and under the “Js” find the scripture references to “Joyce’s Problems – Quick and Easy Step by Step Instructions to Satisfying Solutions”. He has, in His compassion, actually sent me the closest thing, in my estimation, to an actual visual sign on one rare occasion. I was troubled and pouring my heart out to a friend on the phone when I looked over and there on the side of an apple box was a blue circle with the words “Don’t Worry” written on it. I know that at that moment that was exactly what I needed to “hear”…err “see”. There have been many other times when I poured out my heart only to look around and see…..nothing, and hear….silence. I know it isn’t within His nature to be callous and uninterested and withhold Himself from us. And I know that He doesn’t just miss hearing us sometimes. As I was thinking about this yesterday I came across a key chain from, of all places, an old garment that I had purchased from Calvin Klein. It said “choice”. God knows what is best for us and desires to give us that. But, He loves us enough that He didn’t make us His puppets. We don’t walk around like remote controlled robots obeying His every command. We have free will….choices. If we know and believe His truth then we should be able to discern His purposes and will in situations as they arise. Sometimes we have to just step out in faith trusting that He will guide us. Obedience is a choice, so is disobedience. Trust is a choice, so is doubt. To love is a choice, so is to hate. Submission is a choice, so is rebellion. If we choose to drive our car off the side of a cliff, that is a choice. The show “Let’s Make a Deal” was all about choices….door one…door two….or door three. Do I keep what I have or risk it all on the chance that what is in the box will be better? Life is not simple because it is filled with choices every minute of the day. But, maybe life is simpler than I think. Maybe I am the one that makes it more confusing and complex because of the myriad of choices set in front of me that I wrestle with constantly. Maybe I need to stop and listen to the heart of the One who scripted the perfect scenario for me in each and every scene of my life’s journey. Maybe I need to put down the remote so the temptation to channel surf through life looking for quick fixes won’t be there. That, too, is a choice.

Psalm 9 - The List

Name the five best days of your life. That was the background theme for an episode of “Lost”. Charlie knew, or at least assumed, that he was going to die and as he reflected on the years that he had lived on this earth he began to compile a list of his five best days. In flashbacks as he wrote out his list; he remembered the day he first heard his song on the radio, the day his Dad taught him to swim, the day his brother gave him a family heirloom ring and the day he responded in heroic fashion to a girl in distress. But, his number one day was, “The day I met you”. Obviously, he was writing this list not just for his own personal benefit. He was sharing this so that, in his absence, his friend would understand her significance in his life. It touched my heart because I realized how much that would mean to me to know that I had impacted someone’s life in such a way that they would consider my entry into their realm of existence as being one of the best things that happened to them. To make a difference in someone’s life, to have them feel that their life was better for having known you…how edifying that would be to know that. Not many of us have the option of knowing the exact time of our departure from this earthly existence, especially in such a way that we are completely coherent and in good health to the end. As a result, how many of us get to leave such a legacy, such a gift for those friends that we deem so invaluable. As I thought about it, I don’t think that I care how many people I impact, but how deeply I impact even just one life. I don’t have to be their numero uno best day, but how awesome to make their top 10 or 20 days. As I think about it, I feel blessed to have those that have brought color into an otherwise black and white existence. They have allowed me to dream dreams with them and live life with a passion that is fed by their creativity. They know the deepest parts of my heart and soul and love me anyway. Definitely I can say that one of my best days was “The day I met you”.

Psalm 8 - Finding Yourself

The whole concept of “finding yourself” sort of implies that you have actually lost yourself somewhere along the journey. I have spent more than half of my natural life here on this earth already and I am still trying to figure out the complexity of who I really am. Just when I have thought that I had come to a reasonable conception of that, curves came my way that made me question if I really had an objectively clear picture of “me”. I totally know who I WANT to be. But, just like Paul says in his epistle….I do what I don’t want to do and I don’t do what I want to do. I realize as a result of my own desire to please others that at times I have allowed them to define me. As a little girl, my parent’s perceptions of me and their words embedded in my ears caused me to own their view of who I was. As you grow older, you begin to be hugely impacted by your peers. To some degree I feel like I had a strength to not be swayed by the peer pressure that so hugely affects most adolescents. I didn’t give into many of the vices that my friends got caught up into because of a certain moral fiber that was inexplicable part of my soul. I truly believe that it was God’s call on my life to which I was responding. However, that refusal to conform and join in subtly began to create a certain “less than” sense of worth within me. Without intention and without realizing it…I was slowly losing a clear picture of who I really was and began owning a warped perception formulated by others. That distortion caused me to focus on what others were thinking and feeling about me rather than correctly focusing on the contentedness of who I was becoming and the excitement of the possibilities of what I could be about. The irony is that I was giving power to define me to the people, society in general, who knew me least. Plus, the greater irony was that it was just what I was assuming they were thinking rather than what they were truly thinking about me! Would it not make much more sense to give the power to define me to the One who actually knows me best because He created me? Shouldn’t I be listening past the din of marketing ads directed at making me feel like I need their product to make a better me and hear the voice of the One who truly loves me unconditionally? There is a saying, “You would worry less about what people thought about you if you realized how seldom they actually do”. It is true and sad at the same time. It implies that we live in a world where people are so self-absorbed as a result of their own insecurities that they don’t have the time or energy to give to others. People spend unlimited amounts of money trying to mold their external being into something that society has deemed as beauty. In that quest, they often forget that beauty actually lies within. I forget that! I look at the magazines. I look at the television and movies. I look in the mirror and compare and see less than. I see time etching its mark on my face and body and I mourn the loss. That brings me back to who I WANT to be. I want to look in a mirror and see past all of the physical imperfections that I really had nothing to do with because they came with the genetic code when I was born and see a beautiful heart that lies within. My physical being was knit in my mother’s womb. I can adorn it with all kinds of clothes, jewelry, makeup…whatever. But, it is the physical body that I was dealt. Sure, I could spend lots of money changing whatever, but eventually it just decays and returns to dust. So, why not invest in something eternal. That is the heart attitude that I am choosing. My earthly investment is those that God has given me to love and to walk life with. I want to freely give of who I am and what I possess, actually what I possess as a result of what He has blessed me with, to those who He places in my life. I want to not be so focused on myself that I miss hearing their needs, not just their monetary needs but the needs of their soul. I want to love well. When God says to me, “Well done, good and faithful servant; I want to know that it wasn’t so much what I have DONE, but the lives that I have impacted along the way. Maybe finding yourself IS actually about losing yourself…..losing yourself in Him.

Psalm 7 - The Original Blogger

I have heard the phrase, “There is nothing new under the sun”. I think that is said in reference to the fact that so many things seem to come in cycles. Fashions that were the trend in the 70’s are embraced as new by a generation that wasn’t there to have experienced them in the earlier decade. If you go into any bookstore you will see a whole section devoted to journals filled with empty pages awaiting the pen and thoughts of one compelled to record their life on paper. And, in this electronic age many of these journalists have turned to their computers to compose…and called them blogs. One creative computer whiz may have made it easier to facilitate these eager authors of expression, but the format of “blogging” has been around for centuries. My personal favorite blogger is King David. His Psalms were blogs set to music….songs. He poured out his heart in each and every Psalm that he penned. At various times he expresses his frustration and confusion with life situations, his unbridled joy with surprises which delighted his heart, sorrow at expectations unmet, desperation at situations out of his control and impatience at dreams prolonged. I am always amazed that even though these were composed so many years ago, they ring true to my own heart and I have often cried out to God using David’s words because they so clearly and accurately echo my own feelings. There have been many times when I didn’t have a clue how to verbalize the depth of the pain in my heart and I have turned to the Psalms and found the perfect words already penned by David. I love the fact that David chose to put the words of his heart expression to melody. Lyrics provide the framework to tell the story, but the music provides the drama and passion that paints the picture to complete the thought. Modern day songwriters continue to allow others into the personal journals of their life through the music they write. Sometimes when certain songs come on the radio, it actually transports me back to a moment in time that is etched in my memory because that song was playing in the background providing the musical score for that part of my life journey. I can instantly find myself re-experiencing the emotion that had until then been relegated to only a memory. Music seems to be a universal language. It is interesting that the sound of the words change due to language differences, but the tune or melody is the constant. If we hummed a popular song it would be recognizable to anyone regardless of their native tongue. It is also amazing how much emotion can be created from so few musical notes. The musical scale is composed of just 7 notes, or with sharps and flats factored into the chromatic scale, you have essentially 12 notes. There isn’t an endless supply of notes to choose from, but there is an apparent endless array of possibilities for melodies to give life to lyrics. I love that music is relational, not just in the fact that it can be universally enjoyed, but that it is often formed by the individual talents of two or more people collaborating. One may have the ability to capture a particular story in words and the other is able to set the mood with the music that perfectly compliments the intent of the lyricist. Maybe there is something new under the sun after all. It is called the next song waiting to be written.