Crushes on Dead Men and Theology in Movies

John Calvin

In high school I started going to a new youth group at a local church.  I met lots of new people, made some life long friends, and learned a bunch of theology.  You see, this church youth group wasn't like the ones you may be familiar with.  We had fun like most, but rather than playing endless games of Have you ever? and freeze tag, we dissected systematic theology and pondered dispensationalism.  We were a bit intense.  I was also introduced to a guy there.  He said things I had never heard before.  He was wise and intellectual.  He glorified God's sovereignty and had an affinity for tulips.  After a while the inevitable happened - I developed a crush on him.  I was smitten with John Calvin.  

Me at the John Calvin
statue in Geneva

Some may see this as problematic considering the fact that Calvin died in 1564 (and there's that intense beard issue), but I was more concerned with Calvin's writings and doctrine.  John Calvin is famous in church history for propagating the notion of God predestining humans for salvation, and every other aspect of life, based on five theologic points that spell out the acronym, TULIP.  I was enthralled with Calvinism and the solace I found in believing God was in control of literally everything.  This theological crush was my entry point into Reformed Theology.  Over the next few years, my friends and I spent hours debating theology and stayed up to all hours of the night listening to John Piper sermons... for fun.  It was a very Jesus-nerd stage of life.  I was a bona-fide 5-point Calvinist, committed to the teachings of God's sovereignty, and considered free will a dirty word, or two words rather.

A lot has changed since those days, some of which I wrote about in a previous post.  While I still love a lot of Reformed thinking and have kept some of it in my current hodgepodge of eclectic theology, I have digressed into a 2.5 point Calvinist and acknowledged that I really don't understand it all.  Although I am in a new season of being content with not knowing all the answers, investigating the ways of God still fascinates me and I am constantly intrigued by the small things that shape my view of Him.

One such moment came when watching the film The Adjustment Bureau.  That's right folks, a secular movie was instrumental in shaping my theology [gasp]!  While this is something that I swore I would never EVER do, times have changed and I was actually really provoked by a quote at the end of the film.  For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I don't want to spoil it for you, but the basic story line is that an unseen organization called the Adjustment Bureau (led by the God-like mysterious "Chairman") predestines the future of humans until one day, a man (Matt Damon) tries to fight for his own fate.  At the very end, a member of the Adjustment Bureau closes the film by saying, "I think that's the Chairman's real plan ... maybe, one day, we won't write the plan. You will."  [Insert my mind warping, making connections, and thinking at a hundred miles an hour here.]  The credits rolled and I just sat there, pondering that thought.  

After some time and reflection, here is my hypothesis.  We know that God is abounding in love for us because He is a good Father.  And like any good father, He is going to make choices for us that are in our best interest.  This makes Him no more of a crazed power-weilding divine dictator than an earthly father who chooses nutritious food and warm clothes for his children.  The choices are in our best interests.  

But, just like when we grew up and our parents began to let us make our own choices about what we wore, ate, read, watched, and played, God also allows His children greater freedom as they grow into maturity.  I fully believe that when Jesus has returned and we are living in His glorious kingdom, He will delegate responsibilities to us, allowing us to rule and reign with Him.  (P.S. I totally call dibs on establishing a righteous and just government with Jesus someday!)  So in light of this, maybe life is one big training ground for us in our journey of regeneration and redemption, so that one day we will be equipped to rule with Christ.  That one day I will be so much like my Father in Heaven that He won't have to predestine things in my life - I'll make the choices He would have made for me all along.  

Maybe it isn't an either/or situation between Calvinism and the Armenian free will doctrine - maybe it's both.  Perhaps the Father has prepared seasons of greater predestination and seasons in which He allows us greater use of choice.  This concept would have driven me crazy a few years ago, because it seems so grey.  I firmly believed in absolute, right or wrong, black or white, truth.  But the more I get to know Jesus, I'm realizing that we live most of our life in the grey areas.  As a wise friend and mentor always says, we live life in the tension between two truths - forcing us to constantly rely on Christ to keep us in balance.  For the first time in a long time (maybe ever) I feel like I'm learning to walk this grey tightrope of balance between the two predestination camps.  Does God predestine life for us or do we have free will to make our own choice?  I answer, yes.

So that's the theology that I found in a movie and that's about where I sit with the whole predestination thing right now.  We must acknowledge that predestination exists because Jesus said "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them." (John 6:44) and Paul tells us that "those God foreknew he also predestined." (Romans 8:29).  But what that exactly means, I have no idea.  And I'm okay with that.  For now I'm loving the idea that God predestines parts of our lives out of His great, caring, protective love for us and that someday I'll be like Him.  


And let's face it, that beard really would have been an issue.  Sorry Mr. Calvin.

Where are you in the predestination debate conversation?

Eleven Years

Shannon and I in Jin Li, Chengdu, China

This eleventh month of the year 2011 will mark eleven years of friendship with one of the dearest people I know.  When my family moved back to Colorado in the fall of 2000, I was a lonely 12 year old, uprooted from all I knew and attempting to adjust to the multitude of changes occurring in my life.  My aunt, knowing I was in need of a good friend, set my family and another family up on a "friend blind date" of sorts.  And so, on a chilly November evening, Shannon and I met for the first time at a toy store in our small town.  

Since that day, we have experienced so much together.  We've gone through joys and heartbreaks, close times and seasons where we drifted apart, hilarious adolescence and attempting to figure out this whole adulthood thing.  But through it all, Shannon has been one of the dearest, most faithful of friends.  I remember huddling away in a corner to pray for our future husbands together when we were 13, listening to hours of LaRue, attempting to give Shannon dreadlocks during a weekend in the mountains at age 14, and our first annual all girls camping trip.  But, perhaps my most favorite memory is when we dreamed of going to the nations.  A true kindred spirit, Shan and I would dream about where the Father would call us, how many orphans we'd save, and what languages we'd learn to share the gospel in.  Our hearts bonded while dreaming about reaching a dark and hurting world with the glorious light of the Son.  And that's exactly what we did.

Through the years, we've watched each other go to five continents, swapping Africa stories and laughing about culture shock.  We've loved on those orphans and shared the good news in over 20 countries between the two of us.  And all those years of dreaming about being like Amy Carmichael when we grow up are making this exact moment so much sweeter.

You see, I am in China.

Shannon has been living here for the past year, serving the King we both so ardently love and have pursued together.  Closer now than ever, we talk for hours about the marvels of our King and the beauty of His ever-present grace in our lives.  Watching His work in her has been one of life's greatest pleasures and actually being able to live life with her here for a few days is beyond sweet.  Everyday here I am moved to tears by the goodness of the Father.  He brought us from little girls with big dreams to a place where we are actually living them.

Friendship is one of the Father's most precious gifts to us.  Being able to walk in covenant with another human being through the good and bad times is such a picture of Christ's love for us.  Having someone walk with you who says "I will fight for the Father's best in your life and not allow you to settle for anything else" is truly amazing if we stop and think about.  Friendship allows us to witness another's life, cheering them on along the way.  Shannon has spent the last few years cheering me on, supporting me, and encouraging me while I've been living and serving overseas, and now it's my turn to cheer.  And that's exactly why I'm in China -- cheering on my faithful friend in the work of our Daddy-King.  

Oh, and I am having WAY TOO MUCH FUN doing it!

Oh thank you Father for friendship.

Embracing the Crazy & Learning to Love

This summer, I reached the one year mark of living back in the states.  It was a bittersweet feeling.  I miss the nations in the deep places of my heart, but cherish the sweet lessons I have learned in this year at home.  I have reconnected with friends and mentors, bonded with family, and completed a year of university.  School has been inspiring for a nerd like me, as I'm sure future blogs will reveal.  But perhaps the most important thing I learned at school last year was a lesson in love.

After three years of traveling the world, studying the Bible, and living in a missional community I re-entered the American academic world.  As a political science major, I dusted off my apologetics books and brushed up on my debate arguments.  Enrolled in a "secular college" I was prepared to win people to Christ through the virtue of my argument -- intellectually and logically.  I was tired of accusations that Christians can't use their brains and intended to prove them all wrong.

But then something happened.  First, I realized that nobody was asking the questions I had rehearsed the answers to.  My classmates and professors didn't care about the Council of Niccea, they were just trying to get through today.  I listened to hours of people... hurting.  Looking for love.  Broken.  Purposeless.  Then it hit me, they didn't need an argument, they needed to encounter love.  A love that never ends, never gives up, never fails.  For once they experienced a love like that, I wouldn't need to convince them God was real, they would know it at the core of who they are.  And so I set aside my arguments and picked up the burden of love for my classmates and co-workers. 

I have also been doing what I affectionately call, "embracing the crazy."  Once I allowed myself to let go of logic as a tool of winning my friends to the Kingdom, I realized how crazy we Christians sound -- and I love it!  I believe in a virgin birth and that a God/man's blood allows me to live forever!  Just let that sink in a bit.  Sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it?  But that is the beauty of faith.  God is completely other than us.  He is beyond our reasoning, comprehension, and logic.  So rather than try to intellectualize the indescribable and logically prove the immeasurable, I'm learning to embrace the fact that I don't understand it all.  I have no other explanation other than faith.  It is truly believing in the unseen hope.  I love that I can't fathom all that He is, because if I could, I would limit Him in the finite dimensions of my own mind.  No, my Jesus is limitless.  He is the author of life and sculptor of love.

So I choose to embrace the crazy -- to treasure what is beautifully foreign and unseen.  I never thought I would be the girl championing fluffy love over intellectualism or debate, but my human logic is overrated in the light of God's strong, unchanging, life-giving love.  He is more real than I could ever describe and more loving than I could ever argue.  His love reigns supreme in the universe and it's going to change the world.  Has it changed yours?  Will you let Him in? 

Golda Meir's House: My Daily Inspiration

In 1911, Herman Kortz and his wife Fanny, built a small, brick duplex in the style of the Denver Double at 1606-1608 Julian Street to serve as a rental property. The Kortz family had established themselves in Denver business with their jewelry stores, of which Elvis Presley was a loyal customer.  Almost immediately upon the house's completion, Sam and Shayna Korngold, a young couple with their daughter, Judith, moved in as tenants.

The west Colfax neighborhood of turn-of-the century Denver had become somewhat of a gathering place for Jews of Russian decent, such as the Korngolds.  Most of them had traveled out West for treatment at Denver's famous Jewish Hospital for Consumptives (Jewish Consumptive Relief Society and National Jewish Hospital), and were either ill or recently recovered from tuberculosis.  This was also true for the Korgolds, as Shayna suffered from consumption.  In 1913, Shayna's younger sister, Golda (known as Goldie to her family) unexpectedly came to live with the Korngolds in their Denver home.   Fifteen-year-old Golda had been living with her parents in Milwaukee, studying to become a teacher.   Her parents however, wished Golda to discontinue her studies and marry the young man they had chosen for her.  Knowing that Milwaukee law forbade married women from teaching in public schools, Golda ran away to Colorado to continue her studies.

While in Denver, Golda worked part time as a presser for her brother-in-law at Korngold's Cleaning and Pressing Works, near the Brown Palace Hotel and attended North High School.  In the evenings, the Korngold's home served as a regular meeting place for Jewish intellectuals in the community.   Philosophical discussions and heated debates, covering a broad range of topics, would often carry on into the early morning hours.  It was during these nights of intellectual fervor that Golda developed many of the values and ideas that would later serve her during her political career, including Zionism and women's suffrage.   In her 1975 autobiography My Life, she stated, "to the extent that my own future convictions were shaped and given form ... those talk-filled nights in Denver played a considerable role." and "it was in Denver that my real education began."

Not only did Denver nourish Golda's future political life, but her personal one as well.  She met an artistically inclined, music-loving sign painter named Morris Meyerson, whom she married four years later.  After two years in Denver, Golda reconciled with her parents and moved back to Milwaukee to complete her high school education.   Shortly there after, she, Morris, and her beloved sister Shayna emigrated to what was then know as Palestine, where they changed their name from Meyerson to its original Hebrew version: Meir.  The year was 1921.
With Shayna's emigration to Israel, the Korngolds vacated the Julian Street house, and the Kortz's found new tenants. Various families and individuals inhabited the duplex over the the next fifty years, but none so influential nor inspiring as Golda Meir.

Shortly after Golda's death in 1978, the duplex was identified as her home and reached its current home on the Denver Auraria campus in 1988.  The city of Denver deemed the house city landmark in 1995.  The house remains the sole preserved American residence of Golda Meir.

Every time I walk past this quaint brick home on campus, I am inspired.  I'm inspired at how my ramblings and debates of today could change the world tomorrow.  I'm inspired by how God can use women who are passionate.  I'm inspired by how a woman will move across the world to act on what she believes.  I'm inspired by how much just one woman can inspire me.

This house feels like a gift from the Father just for me.  It serves as just one more confirmation that I'm supposed to be where I am, studying what I am, because someday, He just might use me to inspire others.

I'm the Christian I was Before

I'm not the Christian I used to be.  I'm the Christian I was before.

I've been unraveling that mystery over the last few days, weeks, and months. 

Things are beginning to come into focus.

When I was little, I was enthralled with Jesus.  The songs we sang in Sunday School all revolved around Him.  He was "in my heart" and on my VBS t-shirt.  He was everything.  I drew pictures of Him, asked questions about Him, and sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" every Christmas.  I was that kid always talking to and about Jesus. 

But in high school, I was introduced to the wonderful world of theology.  I fell in love with the study of God -- this divine mystery that captivated me.  All of a sudden, all my childhood Bible stories and flannel graphs had a very intellectual and mature context.  The academic in me became slightly obsessed and I devoted myself to study.  But, somewhere between Calvin and Grudem, I lost sight of Jesus.  He began to seem trite.  Rather than singing simple songs to Him -- I recited doctrine.  Instead of using "immature" language to describe salvation such as Jesus "in my heart," I claimed that I had accepted His atonement for sin.  I still loved Jesus, but it was different.  I scoffed at those who mused about the fluffy, sugary, teddy bear Jesus.  What baby Christians.  Didn't they know that God was much more than cotton candy?  He's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent (and there's probably another omni in there somewhere).  All I could see was arguments, theologies, and 5 point doctrines.  I felt as though I had found my niche.  I was going to be the smart theology girl.  It takes my breath away to think of it now, but Jesus faded into the background for awhile -- replaced with scholars and systematic theology.  Jesus became cute and unimportant.  The cross became elementary. 

Then something happened a few years ago.  Jesus cut through my logic and showed me love.  All of a sudden I was a child once more.  Jesus captured my affections in a way so real and so tangible that my heart gushed for Him.  In this last year at home, He has led me further and further down the path of love.  These days I sound like a certified hippie, because I am consumed with Jesus' love.  It's what the world needs now -- His love, sweet love.  When life is the question, Jesus' love is the answer.  I still enjoy theology and ridiculously thick books full of ideas about the Divine, but now my motivation is purely love.  Oh that I might know all that my heart and mind can contain about this magnificent One.  I've come full circle, back to the little girl who is enthralled with Jesus. 

Thank You Jesus that I'm not the Christian I used to be.  Thank you for making me the Christian I was before.

There's no Place Like Away from Home

When asked what emotions the word home evokes, most people will respond with warm, cozy, feelings, and sentiments of security. But, in my opinion, home is far overrated. Our comfortable habitats can only allow us to experience so much. That is why, for me, there is no place like away from home. Everyday, the world waits for me – a standing invitation to break out of my confines and discover new cultures, foods, languages, and perhaps more than anything else, I truly discover myself. 

Over the past several years, the nations have been my classroom. I better understand the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because I spent time in Israel and the West Bank conversing with the people. I cherish literature at a deeper level after my time in Switzerland, meandering through the oldest monastic library in the world. I devour history with greater appreciation after clambering upon Egypt's pyramids and staring into the face of the Sphinx. Intentionally positioning myself mentally and geographically for learning has lead to some of the most educational and influential experiences of my life. But none of these would have been possible had I stayed home, warm and cozy.

When I remove myself from the things in my own culture which define me, I not only learn about this wondrous world I reside in, I propel myself down the path of self-discovery. No more friends, family, or co-workers mandating who I am. No more job, school, or native culture to tell me what to do or how to dress. When I am completely outside of my daily restrictions, I am allowed to be the truest version of myself. And it is in that state of complete freedom that I feel most alive.

So, although home may be our definition of comfort and security, home is limited, and security places boundaries around our potential experiences. The world, however, is limitless – full of cultural and personal treasures waiting to be discovered. The experiences travel affords should never lead to a disdain for home, just for the contentment that it can all too easily incite. For when I am discontented with the normalcy of home, it is then that I hear the nations beckon clearest and I know that there is no place like away from home.

Help! I was Homeschooled!

Shanny and I on my 22nd birthday
 eating amazing baklava:)

Shannon, or Shanny as she is better know to those near and dear in her life, is one of my favorite people in the world.  2010 marked ten years of our covenant friendship and I am so blessed to know her.  We have seen each other through times of joy and pain, supported each other in missions, and even went through a rebellious time together (we liked boys when we were 13.  Yikes!). 

One of my favorite things to do with Shanny is to talk and laugh about the book we will write together one day, entitled, Help! I was Homeschooled!  We get together over chai and share our hearts to see freedom brought to young people in our generation who may have been misguided, like we were.  Now, in our twenties, we have been on a similar journey of learning about the reality of blood bought grace in our lives and the freedom that is our inheritance in the Kingdom of God.  So now, whenever we share a powerful revelation that Abba has given us, we half jokingly/half seriously say "That's going in our book!"  Who knows, maybe you'll see it on the shelf someday.  

These days Shanny is half way across the world serving our King with an ardent love that exudes from her pure heart.  I miss her bunches, but couldn't be happier to see my sister/friend walking in the ways of our God -- pouring her life out for the broken.  

A few weeks ago, my family had Shannon's family (all 9 of them, minus my sweet friend of course) over to our home.  They all have such a special place in my heart and I soaked up the hours we spent discussing the work of God in our lives and let the tears stream down my cheeks as we worshipped and proclaimed God's goodness together.  At one point in the evening I began sharing about my struggle with feeling tainted.  

You see, courtship is like one of the pillars of the homeschool movement, and as a teenager, one way to look pretty spiritual is to be on the courtship train.  I was that girl in middle and high school that went to the purity conferences, read the courtship books, and made the husband lists (Did anyone else do this?  That's a whole other post all together!).  Now those books can be really great if you read one or two, but if you read twelve like me and some of my friends did, it gets really unhealthy really fast.  First, it gives you a completely skewed perspective.  In retrospect, I wish that I had read one of those books, and ten others on prayer, consecration, missions, and theology.  Romantic relationships did not need to take up so much space in my thoughts or my bookshelf.  

Second, I fell in love with godly rules more than relationship with God.  Those of you who know me well probably smile when I say that I love black and white -- right and wrong.  There is something in my God created nature that loves moral absolutes and unquestionable truth.  But at sixteen, that part of me saw many of the principles in those books as rules that lead to a perfect relationship, marriage, and life.  The devastating flip side of that coin is that if you make even one mistake or break one rule, your hopes of a wonderful marriage shatter forever.  I joke that I believed things like, "Well, I had a crush on a boy so now I'll never have a good marriage."  But in reality, I believed that with all my heart.  I believed that I was tainted.  I knew that God would forgive and redeem me where I had been emotionally promiscuous, but I completely believed that I was no longer pure and lovely. My once white dress had its hem drug through the mud.  


At this point, Caleb, Shannon's little brother (who isn't so little anymore at 21) spoke up.  Caleb is the perfect example of still waters run deep.  He doesn't speak up often, but when he purposes to make his voice heard, it is often profound.  And this time was no exception.  He began to share that you may believe that you've ruined a part of yourself by "messing up," but in reality, we are all already completely ruined and Jesus loves that.  We are born in a sinful state and Jesus lovingly chooses to redeem us.  Just let that sink in for a second.  We are born in sin and live a life of sanctification from the moment of salvation onward.  We are not born with these clean slates that we mar and mark up over the course of life.  Jesus is taking me on a love adventure and as I love Him more, I am being transformed into the spectacular Bride.  When Caleb spoke those words, the Holy Spirit gave me a complete paradigm shift.  The lies of the enemy that I had ruined it all were no longer valid.  I realized that I was born ruined and have been gloriously redeemed.

It looks like our book is going to have to have a guest contributor:)  Hint, hint, Caleb.  

P.S. I absolutely LOVED being homeschooled, wholly support the practice, and will probably educate my children at home someday.  This is not an attack on homeschooling, simply a desire to see young people set free from lies that can be found in the broad "homeschooling movement."