How Do You Measure a Year?

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights; in sunsets

In midnights and cups of coffee

In inches; in miles

In laughter; in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?

Measure in love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truth that she learned

In times that he cried

In bridges he burned

In the way that she died

It's time now to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate/remember a year

In the life of friends

Remember the love

Measure in love

Oh you've got to remember the love

You know that love is a gift from up above

Share love, give love, spread love

Measure your life in love

("Seasons of Love," from the musical, "Rent")

There's so much I could say... but I hardly know where to begin. Time is an enigma. It can be measured mathematically, but its impact is far more complex. While on the one hand it seems as though the year has flown by, on the other it seems that too much has happened to be contained in the span of one year. My mind and heart have been very full these past two weeks, as I've looked back on the year and looked forward to the future.

I have learned a great deal this year. I've loved being here, at MACU. I've loved my classes; I've received invaluable training for my future ministry. I've loved my professors, who have worked with me and talked with me and who have expressed genuine interest in both my immediate and long-term goals. And here's a shout-out for Dr. Reese, my advisor and MACU's Cross-Cultural Ministry professor--he's the man.

There is a difference, however, between what I came here for--a Biblical eduction and cross-cultural training--and why I came here. There is only one answer to the why: God's will and plan. I felt the specific call to MACU, though at the time my why was very pragmatic. God paved the way for me to be here even before I thought I might want to be! I came here to learn what it took to be a missionary, and I have begun to learn that, and learn it well. God, however, had His own purpose in bringing me to MACU; as always, His plans and purposes far exceed my own. He is able to do immeasurably more than I could ever ask or imagine.

LOVE.

That word makes my heart skip a beat; makes the blood pulse in my ears; brings a lump to my throat and the sting of tears to my eyes. Oh, how He loves me. God has romanced me this year; He has taught me about His love and grace in ways I can hardly describe. The things He has revealed to me sound ridiculously simple when put into words, but God's word colors them with rich shades of meaning:

God loves us.

"For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He even gave up His only begotten, unique Son, so that whoever believes in, trusts in, clings to and relies upon Him shall not perish, come to destruction or be lost, but have everlasting, eternal life."

-John 3:16, AB

Love God.

"Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy."

-Mark 12:30, MSG

Love one another.

"My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and His love becomes complete in us--perfect love!"

-1 John 4:11-12, MSG

When I think of the way God has loved me this year, the way my dear, dear friends--my comrades in arms; my brothers and sisters in Christ--have loved me, and the way I have loved others, I could weep for the sheer joy and beauty of it. Our prayers have been answered; our hearts have been knit together in love. Our love for one another flows out of our love for God, and His for us. We have held each other, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We have laughed and wept and fought and prayed together; this is true fellowship. We have each other's backs; we encourage and exhort. As often as it possible, and as much as we are able, we are there for one another. I have many memories to cherish. Oh, I will miss my friends this summer!

This year has changed me in more ways than I have words. How do I measure it? In mistakes made? In lessons learned? In good conversations? In smiles or tears? In jokes and laughter? In adventures? In quiet times? In hugs and kisses?

No.

In love.

Letter to Me

During the fall semester of 2009, I had an opportunity to lead evening devotions for the girls who live on my hall. I read to them from 2 Peter 1:2-14. In sharing that passage of scripture, I pointed out them that it is good to be reminded, sometimes, even of those things in which we are firmly established and know for certain. I passed out colored paper and pens, and encouraged the girls to write themselves letters, which were collected by one of the RAs to be kept until the spring semester of 2010, when they would receive them back.

This Tuesday, the girls on my hall wrote encouraging notes to one another and to specific and anonymous people, and when we were through, we were given back the letters we had written to ourselves. Below is a copy of what I wrote to myself:

Dear Israel;

Yeah. That's God's new name for you. Be careful, God-wrestler, if you think you're standing firm. Be careful that you do not fall. Don't beat yourself up; let's remember to let God's grace be sufficient. Forgive yourself, and let God love on you.

You came in full of pride and secret sins and hurts; God has been making you humble even as He shows you just how dear and precious you are to Him. Remember the tears that have wracked your body and freed your soul. Remember laughter that made you sit down, close your eyes, and cry for want of air. God has decided to show His love for you by surrounding you with friends, and a man who loves you selflessly and sacrificially. Talk to them. Bring things to the light so that you can be healed.

Remember that no one is ever ready for the calling they receive; God fills in the gaps so long as we obey. Speak words of truth in love. Let God bring good things into your life and bless you. Pray every day. Be in the Word daily.

I know how easy it is to get distracted... but don't. Keep walking, even if it seems like the walls aren't coming down. Have faith. Trust God. Don't procrastinate! Take courage! I am learning to love you, too.

Love, Israel.

A Warrior's Prayer

(Below is a prayer prayed tonight, when God demanded my undivided attention, even at cost to myself and others.)

All right God. Here I am. I have come here immediately and alone. I have read from Ezekiel 37, about the valley of dry bones. I have watched the scene from Lord of the Rings, when Aragorn calls upon the army of the dead to fight for him, the king, the heir of Gondor. I have been thinking on and remembering a great deal today. Is the school dying, Lord? Is the body atrophying? Can these dry bones live? That is what you have asked. My answer is... You tell me.

You have been restoring me, changing and growing me, as long as I am willing and obedient; You never force yourself on me. I know I have not been willing, and I have not been obedient. I have been proud. I have lied. I have neglected important things. Worse, I have accepted a lie. Satan is a liar. He has talked me into so many things that are not true, and because I have made agreements with him, he has effectively crippled me and put me into a coma.

When you came, you promised abundant life; life to the full. But I forget the first part of that verse. There is also a thief who steals and kills and destroys. Somewhere along the way I lose sight of the fact that this is a battle. Satan wears away at me slowly. He makes me tired, or sick, or sad, or busy, or lonely, and I think that there is something wrong with me! I think that I should get more sleep, take more medicine, manage my time better, suck it up, grow up, get over it. We’re supposed to persevere under trial, right? God has a plan even when bad things are happening, even when I am being slowly eroded by the daily grind. Lies. These are all lies, meant to sound like the truth. The devil is not above using a grain of truth to accomplish his purposes. He is the accuser, and he will accuse us of a multitude of faults in order to keep us beaten down, defeated, just stumbling along and trying to survive.

But You didn’t come to increase our chances of survival; You came to bring revival. We are in the middle of a battle that we cannot even see! Or if we can see it, we refuse to fight! Of course Satan has come to steal and destroy our lives. The problems we consider trivial, or those that we try to solve under our own power, are spiritual problems. We are Christians! We don’t have “spiritual lives.” The Spirit is in us at all times; He is our life. He does not have to be maintained or managed; He ought to pervade every part of us. He ought to have changed us utterly when He first came into our lives. We ought to have been transformed. And maybe we were. But somewhere along the way Satan got to us.

We talk about eternal life, but I don’t think we realize that eternal life is not far away in the future; it is now. It is glorious and beautiful, and so are we! But though Satan has been bound, he is still at work to destroy all that is glorious and beautiful about us. He has redoubled his efforts, even, because he has become desperate. This is his final hour; he is making his last stand... and he is doing a hell of a job.

He has worn away at us little by little. Bad things have happened, we’ve asked why, and we have accepted his lies: We screwed up. It’s a trial we have to endure. God’s holding out on us. We’ll understand someday. No! There is truth and understanding now! Satan is attacking us! The forces of evil are waging war against us! And we are standing here, shell shocked, wondering why in the world we are being shot at! We’re in the middle of a war zone; we have been our whole lives. There are no nonparticipants. We’re either on the side of the devil or on the side of Christ. Wandering around somewhere in the middle is dangerous and deadly. Why on earth, in the middle of a battle, would a soldier abandon his wartime mentality and wander around without his armor or his gun? He might, if he’d been knocked on the head and forgotten who he was and why he was there.

That, I know, is what has happened to us. We have forgotten—or perhaps we were never taught—that we are at war. So we react like innocent civilians, mere children, when the battle comes to us. We cringe and whimper and cover our eyes and ears, asking you why such terrible things happen or worse... accepting them as normal. There is nothing normal about evil being in the world; sin is the most unnatural thing that ever existed. There is nothing normal about suffering of any sort. But we have accepted this; we have swallowed this bitter pill at Satan’s coaxing, and we think we’ve made it easier on ourselves. Perhaps we have. It is a sight easier to lay down our arms and become noncombatants, listless and lazy as we await our death and release from the unpleasantness of the world. But we cannot deny that the battle is going on, nor can we deny our part in it. To do nothing is to grant victory to Satan.

What if we considered every one of life’s difficulties an act of war? What if we treated sickness and hurt the way we would treat an attack by an enemy? What if we took up the weapons of our warfare—prayer and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God—and fought? What if we refused to be blinded by secularism and treated every problem like a spiritual problem—with a spiritual solution? Is the Lord’s arm too long? Do we think You can handle the really big problems, like redeeming us from sin, but that You are unconcerned with the everyday struggles of our lives? Why do we insist on trying to suck it up, be a man, tough it out? Yeah sure, the testing of our faith develops perseverance, but that is no excuse to abandon the battle against the forces of evil!

We will suffer. Oh, war is certainly a bloody and terrible thing, and casualties will occur every day. But isn’t it better to go down fighting, secure in our identity and purpose as being in You and of You, than to be struck down when fleeing, or worse... when lying around doing nothing? We need to wake up and pull ourselves together! We need to remember who we are and why we are here! And we need to fight!

God... I am Yours. Here I am to carry out your purposes. I want to be alert and oriented, not dazed and confused. I want to go back into training; to get back to my fighting weight. This is a battle. This is a war. Help me to fight with the weapons you have given me, instead of giving up or trying to go it alone. Remind me every moment of the vital importance of maintaining contact with my commanding officer. Help me, God, to carry out Your orders. Help me, God, to advance Your kingdom. Help me, God, to meet my Enemy in battle and take him on; You will give me strength to overcome. Give me wisdom, strength and courage, Lord Almighty, God of angel armies. And God... give me words. Teach me what to say in order to awaken others; to remind them of who they are and why they are here. Soften hearts that have been calloused by the devil’s steady erosion; prepare them to receive this truth. Teach us to love mightily and pray powerfully. Your kingdom come, Your will be done. All glory, honor, power is Yours.

Amen.