Some of my own thoughts (for a change)

(Being a disciple of Jesus is difficult. )

These words formed in my head at 4:30 this morning when I woke up disoriented in a Copenhagen hotel, stuck overnight on my way back to Lithuania. I left Colorado two days ago, and I'm still not home yet. I should be used to all this solo travel, to the anxiety that THIS might be the time they lose my suitcases for good, to the carefully rationed pounds and kroner, eeked out to pay for coffees and bagels. But I am tired of shouldering these kinds of detours, head upheld, forced patience smoothing out my forehead.

But then again... yesterday, I sat in the middle of Heathrow's third terminal, typing away at lesson plans, a cup of coffee at hand, and the entire world's citizens milling around me while I planned my lessons on poetry, sketched out my spring travel... what kind of amazing life I do have! Really. I am doing what I most want - I travel, I read, I write, I teach. On holidays, I wing myself home and ski on the white hills under the bluest sky anywhere in the wide world. Things are not so bad.

I woke up this morning at 4:30, knowing just how much I need to pray. Knowing that I absolutely must get my knees back down on the hard floor, lay face down and raise up my hands, ask forgiveness for my hidden heart, ask forgiveness for my stubbornness that is not satisfied with the gifts I am given. I've always been bad about that - many a Christmas has seen me, rather than thankful, wishing for the gifts I didn't get, caluculating the ones I've been given against those I'd asked for.

But I have this one - this ordinary morning, ordinary, sitting at familiar table in Copenhagen airport, watching the screen tick out the gates, waiting for my departure to be called. I've done all my favorite things, sampled the Elizabeth Arden Green tea hand lotion, run my fingers over the pashminas in Hermes, traced the colorful cut-paper cards with my eyes, lifted the Royal Dutch china and determined it to be too expensive, read the back covers and front flaps of English books with the manner of saying goodbye to a friend - slow and deliberate.

Why are we never happy with the portion we are given? Why has this year in Lithuania felt like such a burden to undertake, instead of the amazing gift it felt like when I first went? I'm thinking a lot about my years at LCC this trip; it's inevitable. I consciously know that this is my last journey this direction. The last beginning to a semester there and I cannot help but feel the difference in my heart to how it feels compared to that first one. Most of what I've felt this past year is how desperately I want my VISION back, how much I lack the enthusiasm and energy that carried me through year one. But I know too much now - I know the kinds of demands that Jesus makes of my heart. I know what it means to submit hopes and fears to him, to give up things and people and loves that distract from him.

I know I'm going to be tempted to regret this time in Lithuania - this Christmas I feel I got a taste of how BEHIND in life I feel having chosen to give these three years to pursuits that don't have tangible monetary or relational results. I see the ugly dragon of materialism slinking back into frame, feel his claws prick at me in reminder that I no longer own anything solid and calculable. Not even a bed. I felt the jealousy of watching financially secure siblings and friends plan purchases so out-of-my-reach that I can't even imagine them. When I start to compare myself and what I have "to show" for my time in Lithuania, it feels like it amounts to a few new wrinkles on my forehead, a busted-up heart and faith that's stretched beyond what it can snap back from.

Paradoxically, I also know I'm going to be tempted to paint the time in Lithuania with simplistic, happy primary colors (red, yellow, green). To try and neatly package what I've been through here, try to come up with some tidy lessons that I can carry around like nuggets in my pocket, applying as needed.

And what have I learned? Maybe only one thing (watch, here comes the package-ing): That the heart's submission to God's will is the everlasting, ongoing, singular task of a discipled life.

There are tangential lessons of course, but this is the sum total of what I will take from my time in Lithuania, that being a "Christian" is not easy or comfortable. I knew this before, of course, but never have had to continually, repeatedly, wrenchingly put to death my own hopes in the practice of following what I believe to be the sake of God's Kingdom. At first, this seems adventurous, like Frodo on a great quest, the excitment of serving a cause greater than yourself. We, as young believers, get high on these kinds of quests (try a jolt of this any time at a conference like Urbana), and often these intial visions can sustain a period of intensity and committment. But pretty soon (soon being relative), the self, the heart, our own desires will announce themselves, and we'll have to do battle. Or the task will seem compromised and unworthy of our time, so we'll quit. Or, any number of other factors will arise. And then we learn what it means to follow Jesus, to be His disciple, His instrument, His hands and feet. It means that we must die to ourself.

I had an atheist friend this summer who said something about believers that I've heard repeated often by writers and philosophers in disparaging people of faith. (Well, sometimes it sounds like they mean it kindly, but to me it always comes off as a slam). They say that belief in God is instinctive, comforting, something we need in troubled times.

I'm sorry atheist friends, but my belief in God is profoundly UN-comfortable. There are many, many times when God's existence, the demands that His reality makes on the life of a follower, are discomforting in the extreme. I think the only way that they must get away with making this argument is that so often believers live as functional atheists, only turning to God when we encounter things we can't handle or deal with on our own.

This may explain my extreme distaste for books such as "Live your best life now" (yes, I know poor Joel Osteen is everyone's whipping boy, but it's just so easy). I think that these kinds of books and beliefs, that propogate the idea that Christianity will bring comfort and peace and fulfillment for it's followers, only further prop up the atheist assertion that we're all in this for the goodies, for the satisfying retirement package. I don't think Christ-following is all gloom and martyrdom, BUT I do believe that serious Christ-following means that we are going to be uncomfortable. Our SELF is going to get KILLED. Dietrich Bonhoffer says, "when Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die." Christ will lead us, not into white-fenced suburban bliss, but into the places where the darkness is darkest.

How do I know this? Because that is where Jesus went. That is how he spent his life on earth, battling against oppression, sickness, disease and fear. If we are His true followers, He is going to take us there too. And we are not always going to like it. Our comfort-seeking selves are going to feel it as keenly as if our skins were being peeled away. (I always love that Eustace-as-dragon metaphor in Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).

So, this is my sermon to myself as I embark on a final four months at LCC. This is my personal smack across the forehead. A reminder that this experience is both a) amazing, fulfilling, and perfect for me, so don't go whining for something easier and lesser, and b) the only way I'm going to be able to accept it as such is through self-denial, through obedience to God.

We'll see how I do. Stay tuned.