Faith Is Hard

I’ve been thinking a lot about a story in the Bible I heard all the time when I was a kid. It’s the one where one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter, walks on water. If you’ve never heard it, let me quickly recap.

The disciples are in the boat without Jesus (he sent them ahead and told them he’d catch up with them later— HA!) While they’re struggling against the wind to cross the sea, they see a figure walking on the water ahead and after being terrified and believing the figure to be a ghost, they see it’s Jesus. So Peter decides to test Jesus and says “Lord if it’s really you, let me come walk out on the water with you.”

Jesus tells him to come and he does. Peter starts walking on the water.

But then he looks around and notices the wind and the waves and gets scared and starts to sink, calling for Jesus to help him out of the water, which he does. And he asks Peter “Why did you doubt?”

The Bible doesn’t record Peter’s answer, but I can hear it in my heart— because faith is hard.

Faith is HARD. And I’m tired of pretending like it’s not.

I’ve been having the same conversation with people these last few weeks— when it comes to matters of faith, why do I always feel like a fraud? When I stand in church and watch people around me worship, why do I get cynical? Why does it feel like everyone else is experiencing something so naturally that is such a struggle for me? Why is faith hard?

I’ve asked these questions myself. And I ask questions about this story— why did the favor that let Peter walk on water “lift” when he doubted? Does that mean doubt is bad? Does that mean Jesus is disappointed in us when we doubt? In Sunday school the moral of the story always boiled down to “Don’t doubt or you’ll sink.” But what if Jesus had another message?

What if the message we were suppose to get from that story is — faith is hard? And Jesus knows it, and wants us to understand that there are no amount of miracles that can really “make” us believe anything we don’t open our hearts to?

Which is why I think we need to stop pretending as a community of believers that faith isn’t hard for us, sometimes every day. That can be faith that God exists, faith that he’s good, faith that he’s Jesus, faith that he will do what he promises, faith that any of this is real.

What if we shifted the cultural expectation from the idea that “none of us will question anything” to “all of us will question something”? And Jesus isn’t so much concerned about “if we will doubt” and more concerned about the things that cause our doubt and if we know he’s available to us to process them. The first thing he did when Peter doubt was lift him out of the water.

It’s easy to feel alone in doubt because when it comes to faith, like everything in our lives, we’re always most eager to talk about the highlight reel— that conference transformed me! That word shook me! That encounter was real! That verse made me feel closer to God! I get it, it’s natural. It’s the same instinct that makes me want to post a selfie after a workout, it says “Hey look at the really hard thing I just did! It makes me feel awesome!” It’s not bad, it’s just not the whole story.

But sharing the whole story is scary because of the shame culture we’ve created around doubt. We’re taught to be leery of people who question the Bible, we burn the questioners at the stake, call them heretics, excommunicate them, stop selling their books or asking them to speak at conferences. And in the process we’ve hedged off a very important and holy space that is necessary for faith to thrive— the wrestling ring of faith. Instead of finding the hand of Jesus lifting us up, we find his people shoving us down and out.

Faith is hard and Jesus knows it. Before he leaves his disciples he says "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me." (John 20:29) That means you and me.

So for all my friends today who feel like frauds or not good enough. To everyone who feels like they’re sinking and are waiting to see who’s going to come and help them up. Know this: you’re normal. You’re doing faith right. You’re asking God to show up and be the person he has claimed to be. We are the ones who wrestle with God and I believe he LOVES it. It means you care. It means you’re paying attention. It means you’re sensitive to what he’s doing and to others. And for some of you, your doubt isn’t what’s holding you back from God, it’s what he using to propel you into relationship with him. Because faith is hard, and Jesus isn’t pretending it isn’t.

What's the Point of Christian Feminism?

Lately I’ve been asking myself that. Specifically this morning. Is this idea of Christian feminism something God even cares about, or is this an idea I’ve just leached onto and now am championing in vain?

I don’t think you all have any idea how literally I’m asking these questions!

But here’s a little of my heart— to me the point of Christian feminism isn’t about building the empire of women. I have no interest in rallying women into a movement that bolsters them, equips them, inspires them into a kingdom that is all about them. This isn’t about the Queendom of Women (although, let’s all admit that sounds pretty epic!)

I can’t help but hear Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes echoing in the back of my head, “…it’s all vainty…”

Unless God builds it, it’s all vanity. Which means I’ve been asking him lately, where are you working? How do I plant myself in the middle of what you’re doing?

Maybe I even feel a little insecure about the fact that so few Christians, men and women alike, do talk about this issue. What’s the point in championing something that’s way too Jesus-y for non-Christian feminists, and way too nebulous, progressive and not black-and-white for most Christians? Am I crazy for planting myself directly in the center? Not really a part of either camp, but fully a part of both, just caught in the crossfire, a perceived traitor to both parties, trying to be friends with each? And yet it’s that tension that actually makes me feel like I’m onto something that feels like Jesus.

Jesus was always making people uncomfortable. He never aligned himself with any of the religious or social structures we humans built for ourselves. He had another kingdom in mind. In many ways its how he ended up on a cross.

So why Christian feminism? Because there are systems of oppression in our culture, not just in the non-Christian world, but very much alive in the Christian world as well. Christians like to chirp with a smile “There’s no junior Holy Spirit,” when children become Christians. Well, there’s also no female Holy Spirit, and dare I even say, no MALE Holy Spirit. God imparts “his” Holy SPIRIT to whomever accepts “him”.

Why Christian feminism? Because there are women who have been not allowed to step fully into their anointed callings because of sexism. Because we live in a culture that oppresses women, that over-sexualizes them, that under-sexualizes them, under equips them. We live in a culture that in so many ways sets women, especially poor women, up to fail.

Jesus told the religious leaders that any one of them with no sin could be the first one to throw a stone and the woman caught in adultery, which was the customary punishment back then. None of them threw a stone, and left.

My God, there are so many women getting stoned to death these days. And it breaks my heart.

Christian feminism because it’s putting language to what Jesus called caring for the oppressed.

Did this post make you feel uncomfortable? I know. Dare I say, GOOD. This morning I can’t help but feel we need brave Jesus loving women willing to catch some bullets (or stones!) for the sake of living in the TENSION.

Because I believe that’s where the kingdom of God lives. Where are you God? I’m in the tension. I’m in the places where no one wants to go. I’m calling the world to MYSELF.

And I want to be one of the ones who shows the world the way.

Reading Guide for the Christian Feminist

There’s definitely a lot to be said about what it even means to be a Christian feminist—the ways I define it, the way others do, if the two can even really coexist in the same sentence— but that’s a post for another time. (However, if you want a sneak peek at what I think, check out a little project of mine called Womankinde.) Today I’m just here to give you a little reading list of books that will help you come to your own conclusions about the whole thing. These women (and one man!!) have been my spiritual mothers and fathers in the process of relearning and really redefining Christian femininity

1. Jesus Feminist, by Sarah Bessey — I was handed this book unsuspectingly by a dear friend from Northern Ireland who wrote in the accompanying card “Don’t be scared off by the title! I promise you’ll love it!” So I say the same thing to you— don’t be scared off by the word ‘feminist’. This isn’t an angry, bitter book. It’s full of beauty, wisdom, good theology and life. You don’t need to consider yourself a feminist to appreciate these pages, it’s a book for every human.

2. Emboldened, by Tara Beth Leach — For every woman who has been told she can’t lead, preach, sing, or serve because she’s woman— read this book! I’m almost finished with it and honestly the biggest thing I’m taking away so far is that while it’s okay to be heartbroken and hurt by sexism in the church, it isn’t where we’re meant to stay. Don’t let the lie of bitterness allow you to take your eye off the ultimate mission set before us!

3. A Year of Biblical Womanhood, by Rachel Held Evans — you can’t tackle the issue of gender roles without talking about hermeneutics, and really that’s what this book is about: how we interpret Scripture. If we’re going to be a generation equipped to process and talk intelligently about issues of faith in the face of cultural storms this is something we desperately need to learn how to do.

4. Out of Sorts: Making Peace With An Evolving Faith, by Sarah Bessey — because I can never compose a spiritual reading list without this one. I love how pastoral Sarah’s writing is, I always feel like I’m sitting down with a wiser friend over coffee. The way she talks about faith in the grey areas of life speaks to me on such a deep level and I want everyone to experience that kind of liberation too!

5. Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women by Carolyn Curtis James— This is a dense book and covers a ton of heavy topics, but it should be required reading for anyone who wants to learn more about women’s history in the western church in particular and how the global church incorporates female voices.

I hope that if you’re just starting out on this journey of discovering WHAT you think about what the Bible and Jesus have to say about women, that these voices listed above would be a helpful, alternative guide. But mostly I hope you lean into the Holy Spirit of the God who made you. Like my sweet Pastor Allyson says “God wouldn’t have made women if he didn’t have a work he wanted to do specifically through them!”

I would encourage you to enter into this process trusting you don’t have all the answers and that God still has things to teach you. We’re all still learning, growing, and becoming who we were meant to be.

There's Freedom In The Forest

Let me tell you a story. My story. I grew up in a conservative, Swedish Baptist church in Minnesota. We were into minimalism before it was cool, and sang songs out of hymnals. We loved order, intellectualism and avoided chaos-- especially when it came to the messy parts of life and faith. We didn't like disorder, we didn't know what to do with it. At least I didn't. I made my life mission being right. I loved knowing all the answers, I was that annoying kid who raised their hand during Sunday school to correct others, I was pedantic, and self-important-- like Hermione Granger but without the cheeky, sweet side. I grew up into an adult who followed rules meticulously and was hounded by a deep seated fear of being "wrong".

By the time I was 22 I was depressed, unable to avoid my over-active conscience, and someone who saw faith as a list of rules that I wasn't sure if I was quite following. Underneath it all I hated faith, I felt choked, stifled, suffocated under the weight of my own holiness. I poked holes in other people's theology because it made me feel right. And I desperately needed to be right. I didn't want faith but I was too scared to leave. So I stayed and hoped it would somehow get better.

This is a common story. I'm sure you've heard it before-- maybe you're even living it. I think it's what happens when we miss the forest of freedom that comes with believing in Jesus for the tree of self-righteousness and theology. 

Jesus' message is much more inclusive and beautiful than the one I was chasing. When he hung on the cross he didn't turn to the thief hanging next to him, asking for mercy, to recite catechism or if he believed in predestination or free will. He didn't ask him about his beliefs on skirt lengths, or sexuality, or drinking alcohol, or whether or not he had any tattoos. 

He didn't ask him anything, he just told him that he'd see him on the other side of this life, plain and simple. 

My mom used to tell me, "I wish you'd break the rules so you could realize how much grace and love God has for you! There is an ocean of grace waiting for you to swim in." 

So I started breaking my own rules and asked God what he thought about them. Never did I ever find he was angry with me. I began to find freedom when I realized I had made up most of my religion, not God. I watched chains fall off my heart when I realized He cares more about me than even I do. Here’s a couple of ways to know if you’re following Jesus or a religion:

If you don't feel free right now then you don't believe the message of Jesus. 

If you don't feel loved then you've missed the point of the Bible. 

If you don't see your heart changing to love God instead of fear his wrath, then you haven't really met him. 

These days when I watch Christians get in online debates, or lose their minds when another Christian's theology doesn't exactly mirror their own I know they can't feel free. Only caged people try to cage others. Only people who feel judged try to judge others. 

Loved people love others.

Forgiven people forgive others.

People who have required the benefit of the doubt extend that same grace to others.

I'm not sure what your faith looks like. But if you're choking know you can breathe again-- just so long as you let go of your own throat. 

He's there, trying to gently pry one finger off your neck at a time, looking in your eyes and saying "I'm better. I'm better. I'm better." 

Maybe I’m letting grace go too far… But if I'm going to get it wrong, I'd rather be wrong loving people too much. If I'm going to get it wrong, I'd rather extend too much grace. Because you know who else was accused of showing too much mercy? Jesus. And he is infinitely better.

This Place Is For You

A note of encouragement for the one who wrestling with discouragement and doubt: come and abide. You may feel like you've read the words in this book a thousand times, feel guilty for feeling slightly bored, and frustrated with your lack of faithfulness. It's okay to struggle, God is big enough and grace is deep enough. But I encourage you to choose the ground on which you wrestle. Choose to stand, fall, laugh, jump, cry, weep, abide in this place: where the world melts away, and you see him face to face.

When Home Isn't a House You Come Back To

I wish I could take you all to that lake, the one by my old place in Madison. A little ocean in the middle of the rolling Wisconsin green. You smell it before you see it, the smell of watery reeds, living fish and life. 

I visited it every day, a walk down from my door, out past the lawn onto the docks where the ground turned into dancing water. It's special for so many reasons. It was my first home after college, the place I learned how to make real life, adult-sized decisions, paid my first bills, It's where I learned how to battle loneliness, work hard for my living and where I decided that yes, I really did love and want to marry my husband. 

There, at home, I would breathe, rest, know with confidence that I belonged. It's the place a ran to when I needed a haven, a break, a place to belong. 

These days home isn't so simple. There's no structure that makes me feel like that. No lake that welcomes my nostrils, no boat houses or running trails. I have a house but we don't do enough life there to make it feel like home. 

No, these days home is with my husband. Just like my lake home, he's where I run when I need to feel safe and warm. He's helped me understand how it's possible for this world not to be home. This world is a house. It stores all the things that we need to live, but our experiences, our challenges, our rest and joy happens in the arms of Home. 

Living on the road I'm learning so clearly what it looks like to claim a different home, an eternal home, a claim that can't be touched. And in the meantime, while I live in the house, I'm always at home in the arms of the Father who loves me. 

Maybe this is a bit sappy, maybe it's a bit prosaic, but it's the bit of my heart that is speaking this morning so I'll let it have it's say. Home isn't the house we come back to.

I Promise

It's almost a year ago since we sat across the table from each other. She, full of faith, me, eating soup and pretending to be brave and nonchalant. 

"I just feel like God's telling me whatever you do, he's going to bless and go before you," she was so confident. 

It came out of nowhere. We had just met that afternoon. I had to suppress the urge to look around me to see if she was talking about someone else, instead I smiled weakly. I might have inwardly even rolled my eyes. 

"It's just yours to go and claim, he wants to bless you," she kept going. 

And I shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to say. How could she have so much faith and confidence that God was speaking? That she was hearing him? How was it possible when she didn't even know me? 

I realize looking back now that her words fell on doubtful soil. And the doubt came in and squelched it out. 

And if I'm honest, the doubt still does its best to suffocate her words. 

Almost a year later, I still hear them every time I sit down to type. They've got me thinking, they've got me dreaming. 

They've got me coming face-to-face with how little faith I have in God's power to work. A year later I still barely believe that he can do anything. Because if I'm honest, the God I believe in doesn't do very much. 

If faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains, does that mean mine's even smaller? The mountains in my life still loom, and I still choose not to trust his promises. 

But I started thinking, how differently would I act if I actually believed God was going before me and making a way?

What would I do differently if I was confident that every time I jumped, I would fly? What does it really mean to live in resurrection power? 

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How differently would I act if I actually believed God was going before me and making a way?

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Pastor Alan Scott, who preaches in a church along the north coast of Northern Ireland, sometimes just prays for healing over and over and over again at the same prayer meeting until the person in question is healed. When I pray for healing it's more like a hypothetical nicety

My honest prayers for healing go something like: "Dear Lord, it would be so great if maybe you healed this person, but if (and when) you choose not to, please just give us the strength to trust your will."

But what mountains could we move if we started taking God at his word?

When he says he's a healer, why does that doesn't that mean he's THE healer? When he says whoever believes in him will have the power to perform all the wonders he did while he was on earth-- and MORE?

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (John 14:14, ESV)

I want to be a miracle worker, not because I want to be a miracle worker, but because I want to believe in God. The God that he claims to be himself. 

Sometimes I think we're afraid to trust these things, to trust that God is for us because it feels dangerously like some sort of prosperity gospel. But I don't think this is the same thing. Taking the things Jesus promises in his Word to be true isn't the same thing as saying "If I love Jesus I'm going to have a big house and a sports car." 

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I want to be a miracle worker, not because I want to be a miracle worker, but because I want to believe in God.

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It's saying "I might live in a crappy house, might barely scrape by with enough food, be rejected by the world, but I have a God who rains manna down from the heavens. I have a God who has changed the hearts of all my neighbors and has healed my mother from cancer-- because he can."

And I want to believe that when he graciously chooses to say he goes before me in my writing, that he's going to make things I never could dream of happen. I want to have faith that is full. Not because my faith is validated by signs and wonders, but because I want to trust God that much. I want to know his heart so well that I pray for the things that are on it. I want to love him so deeply and trust his power so implicitly that the mountains move into the sea.

I want to take him at his word and trust his promises. So let's start with one promise to take to heart: 

You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. (Joshua 23:14)

You Asked!

I got a lot of questions yesterday about where my Bible is from. So I thought I'd just put up a "wee" post about it. 

Chris bought me this Bible last fall and I nearly passed out because it was so freaking beautiful. 

This beaut is brown leather bound, from Crossway and is called the ESV Journaling Bible. It can be yours here!

Beauty Hunters

Last night I got teased for following more people I don't know on Instagram than people I do. 

But my reason for this is simple. The people I don't know who I follow post really beautiful photos of the most random things, like a bowl of granola, or bedsheets mussed up, or the way the light hits certain objects. And while there's a lot of talk about the evils of Instagram breeding discontent, I merely follow these feeds because I just like to look at beautiful things. I like seeing what others are seeing as beautiful in the ordinary.

However, it got me thinking about beauty. I love beautiful things. It's like there's a little light switch that turns on inside me when I see morning sun filtering through trees, or steam dancing off a hot cup of coffee, or beautifully styled outfits that make people look like they care, or flowers arranged with artistic precision. 

But currently there's not much in my life that's aesthetically beautiful. I'm on week three of living on a tour bus. My bed doesn't contain perfectly mussed white sheets, it's a tiny narrow bunk covered in black blankets. I don't have a beautiful bowl of organic granola and goat's milk, I have a Belvita cookie out of a wrapper and a white, coffee stained mug with my name label printed on it so that no one else uses it first thing in the morning. I don't look glamorous or perfectly styled, I haven't showered and my sweatpants have holes in them but I still refuse to throw them away. 

This is what our lives look like most of the time. And guess what? It's so incredibly beautiful. When I think of my Instagram feed, it's full of beauty. Some of it is aesthetic, some of it is beautiful, real, stunning life. 

A picture of a blurry ultrasound, taken by trembling hands that are more excited and terrified than they've ever been before. 

Someone's first apartment, barren, empty, covered in gross carpet and one window in the corner to light up this step into gorgeous and painful independence. 

A grainy photo of a family celebrating grandma's 94th birthday, a life full of meaning, adventure and beauty. Her smile wide as generations of her faithfulness surround her. 

It's all so beautiful I could cry. 

And sometimes life surprises us and all the types of beauty collides, a beautiful bride shines with deep and trembling joy. Sometimes beauty is snow falling outside your window while you nurse a cup of coffee and a book. 

The beauty of living on a bus isn't in how it looks, but in what it means. I get to do this crazy life with my husband. I know we'll look back at these days where I wake up and lean over the edge of my bunk to see if he's awake in his. Where we share quick kisses backstage and cups of lukewarm coffee. 

These are the moments of beauty I love. The ones I'm grateful for.