What if we are taking the wrong approach- What if people don’t find God in chapel?

My freshman year of college God to me was uncomfortable church chairs on Sunday mornings and sermons that went way over my head. He was like this far away friend that I kind of thought I had but never hung out with. We didn’t even catch up over coffee dates...and He, of all people, should have known that I loved coffee. He was sort of just this blurry picture of a man that I knew wanted to protect me, but I hadn’t the slightest clue how to look at him straight on. I think God was a lot like a recess parent to me. The person who stands outside during recess and directs kids to where they should be and scolds them a little when they aren’t there. Everyone knows the recess parent and appreciates them when they need something, but the rest of the time they are little bit of killjoy. That’s who God was to me; a slightly distracted rule follower who watched all of us at a distance and told us what to do. I wore a uniform nametag that read “Christian” from the time I was 7 to senior year of high school. I kept my ducks in a row in, my shorts the “appropriate” length, and followed all the rules like it was my day job. I said John 3:16 so many times the words kind of died in my mouth. They tasted like stale chips. Everything about my faith was learned, rehearsed and then performed, not one bit of it conformed to my own understanding or gave me a more clear understanding of grace. Not one spec intimate or unique or quirky or stuffed with character- all of which are exactly what God is. My parents are people of beautiful, truthful faith. They have taught me grace and given it to me many more times than I’ve ever deserved, but their faith was theirs and I was just hanging out in its shadow- which I grew to despise. I wanted something that was authentic, and life-giving, and my own. I was sick of people grinning ear to ear and telling me that God loved me. I was like, “Yeah, okay I get it, this guy in heaven loves me and has good plans for me. I hear you, but WHO IS HE?” I was so frustrated by these encounters not because I doubted their truth, but because I was too afraid to admit that I wasn’t there (whatever “there” was) and I that I truly had no idea how to know God like these people appeared to.

So in typical rule-follower fashion, I drug myself to chapel every Monday and Wednesday and sat through what felt like the longest 30-40min of the day. Following my life-sucking chapel experience I would often have the most generic, Baylor girl, Common Grounds coffee dates with people I had just met. Often we sat for over an hour as they talked to me, and sometimes at me, about what God was doing in their lives. Truly, it usually brought me joy to hear about what the Lord was teaching them and all the progress they had made, but I never felt like I had any God stories of my own to share in return….at least none that seemed “that significant.” It felt so surface level and skin deep, all of it. I’d just smile and nod and tell some corny joke because that’s what I do when I’m uncomfortable and go on with my life. Somewhere between the hours at practice, the corny jokes, the long nights studying, and the conclusion of two long semesters of chapel I found myself at the end of freshman year.  I was exceptionally happier than I’d been before this whole college adventure began. I was wearing my skin a little bit more comfortably and I was sinking into new friendships, the real kind, the kind I’d always prayed that I would find.

To my surprise and delight, these friendships withstood the summer heat and separation. Throughout sophomore year our friendship grew and our time spent apart grew sparse. I again found myself at the end of a school year and  was sitting in IHOP having breakfast with five girls who I really knew now. My real friends. And I was different. I was softer and kinder and I understood grace a lot more than I ever had. I had experienced it. I was lighter.

Now, as we enter into the last season of our college experience, these girls are still my “real friends” and we’ve been through an entire life in just a few short years. We have held each others hands through the deaths of friends, through breakups and heartbreak and failed classes. We’ve cried over life, surgeries, victories, and spilled milk. We’ve laughed about assholes and danced on the coffee table in our living room until 4 am. Those generic Common Grounds coffee dates are generic no more and have become precious moments and memories. We have cheered each other on and apologized for the moments when we tore each other down. And somewhere along the way, somewhere in between late night conversations and dumb inside jokes, somewhere squeezed into stealing each others clothes and yelling at each other only to start ugly crying mid hug twenty minutes later. Somewhere amidst the truth and the advice and the hands to hold, I found the God I had been looking for. I found that unique God that freshman year Alexa was so desperately searching for. Rather, He found me.

I didn’t find God in chapel or coffee dates with random strangers, I found Him in the people that loved me without ulterior motive. I found Him in people that took me in and showed me the world through a lens that was so much less legalistic and bitter. I found Him in people who let me into their lives and wanted to be a part of mine. I never had it force-fed to me or slyly snuck into my morning coffee- It just unfolded in front of me and I felt it tangibly as it changed me, as He changed me. I watched as everything in my life became more genuine and full of love, real love.

Just the other morning I sipped my coffee with a real smirk and it hit me, we were having that coffee date. Me and Jesus. We are friends. We have coffee dates. I knew we would.  

In high school I saw Jesus in pictures and quoted after bible verses. In college I saw him in people who picked me up off the ground, over and over again and dusted off my jeans without asking for a thank you card. I saw Jesus in acceptance. I saw Jesus in the smirks of people who asked how I was, and meant it. I saw him as I caught accidental glimpses of the hearts of His people. In pure and genuine ugly squeaky laughter and nights spent talking until our voices forgot how. I found Jesus in people who didn’t even have a clue that their love was so deeply, and drastically, changing my life.

"Mend"

This year everyone was falling. Everyone I know was getting the butterflies. This year everyone I know was going on first dates and last dates and picking up broken pieces and laying them out on the dinner table. This year everyone I know had sweaty palms and wore too much Chapstick. It was a lot of love letters and tears...lots of tears, giddy conversation and fairytale talk. This year everyone I know was trying to be put together. This year I was putting together a puzzle with several missing pieces.
This year everyone I know was looking up the word "mend" in the dictionary and finding a picture of someone else next to its definition. This year was a lot of pick-pocketing other people’s therapy, playing detective to solve everyone else’s mystery. This year everyone I know was falling; in love, out of love, into themselves. This year I was force fed all of them. This year was a psych ward, a room with a lot of white walls and people handing me remedies. This year was building a patchwork quilt out of my past selves, laying it over the back of my favorite chair and sitting down for awhile. This year was coming home to find the quilt torn to shreds. It was a whole lot of inside out hide and seek, looking for places to hide where I wouldn’t be found. This year was snow storms in June and tornado season in December. I was inside out. Looking back at this year I see a whole lot of scattered pieces, a lot of bright yellow caution tape blocking off my memories. This year I stopped at a lot of green lights and I lost a lot of maps. This year I had to ask a lot of people how to get home.
This year feels like it was five piled into one. This year I was playing charades and auditioning for the lead roles in other people’s lives. This year I knew exactly who I was and this year I was terrified of my reflection. This year was a really big puzzle, and I didn’t ever finish it, but I put me together, crookedly. I lit candles in really dark tunnels and I gave up robbing the banks of other people’s healing. I think I learned this year that I’m just going to learn from this year. Old wounds don’t heal if you keep sending them birthday cards.
All I want to remember from this year is how true everyone was. How ripped from pretend we were, all of the roles we got cut from, the spotlights that didn’t shine on us, how thrown into reality we were. I want to remember the highlight reels that only played our mistakes, the silver screens that had grand openings for our broken hearts. I want to remember how real and afraid and ecstatic we became. I want to remember the belly laughs we created and the thank god we’re so alive smiles we found in the strangest places. I’m thankful for all the disaster and all the "I won’t make it"s and the fear, from it we found softening and thawing and truth. This year we came to [real] life.

Triggered Ache

The Lord upholds all that fall, and raises up all those that are bowed down.  The eyes of all wait upon You and You give them their food in due season.”  

Psalm 145:14-15

A Psalm of the Kingdom.  A waiting on you for provision only you can bring.  But what if you bring it a different way?  What if your provision is not the way we thought it would be?

It is only when our expectations of what we thought God would do are put to question that we more rightly discover who God is and our expectations are set more fully on Him. This is a hard saying. One more easily said then acted upon.  The two get so easily confused.   Even for the one whose theology of God seems to be solid, take one circumstance, one moment, and it all seems to go awry.  For me, I hear the sweet news of a friend's coming engagement or find myself standing in the locker room and watching my teammates put on their uniform before a competition and without a moment to collect my thoughts I think, I wonder “God do you see me?  Do you care about the desires of my heart? Or do you simply flaunt the longings of my heart in front of me?” It’s embarrassing to write. It lifts not up the Holy name of God but shows instead my tendency to think more of myself and less of Him.  It reveals my propensity to view God in light of my circumstances instead of my circumstances in light of Him.

Do I forget in those moments how God showed up to Hagar, in her darkest moment, and revealed Himself for the first time as El-Roi, the God who sees? Do I forget the Psalm “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart?”  That my delight is found in Him.  Do I think in those moments God lacks kindness and goodness?  Surely the Cross cancels out any of those questions.  No, in all these things I do not forget completely.  I simply need these truths more firmly rooted in my heart, that what flows out in the instance my ache is triggered beyond the ability to gather my thoughts rationally is the ration of God and not the irrationality of man.

Lord, help me to wait on you to give me what I need, when I need it.  That in the moments my ache is triggered what flows out moves me to a more right view of You.  For truly you alone are the one I am waiting for.