Love

Want to Grow?

/ Erin Kirk / 8 Comments

For the past 20 years I have consumed 3-5 cups of coffee every day. For the past 11 days, I have consumed none. I’m fasting it for Lent. I gave up something I love, in preparation for something I love more.

Does that mean I love Jesus more than coffee? What a weird way to think of it. Usually those two things are kept in separate containers and allowed to mingle only on Sundays.

Three years ago, I decided that separation wasn’t working for me anymore. I wandered as far as I reasonably could before admitting I was lost and should turn back to find another way. I spent years saying and doing whatever I wanted and inventing theology to rationalize my behavior. My life wasn’t bad but my soul was sick. I had fun. Not joy.

There were two reasons Jesus wasn’t part of my life.

1. I didn’t like how many Christians behaved.

2. I wanted to do as I pleased.

IMG_5055Sam and I spent last weekend at our ranch in West Texas. It is the place I surrendered my smart-mouthed wisdom and picked up The Bible. It’s where I learned about discipline and how much better my life works when it’s about Jesus and not me. It’s where I wrote 2/3 of my book with a never-empty cup of steaming, heavily cream and sugared coffee at my right hand.

So, West Texas without coffee, is like baseball without hot dogs, but there’s no way I can cave on this one. I never thought much about fasting or why somebody would bother. But now I get it.

Every morning when I walk by that coffee pot, I experience actual physical longing. So I whine and count the days until Easter when I can have it back.

But every time the longing hits, I imagine the fully divine Jesus, stuck here for 33 years trying to teach limited, harassed, confused, arrogant, stubborn humans like me how to live. How he must have counted the days until Easter.

The fabulous Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan explains what Jesus gave up in The King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus:

The Trinity is utterly different. Instead of self-centeredness, the Father, The Son and the Spirit are characterized in their very essence by mutually self-giving love. No person in the Trinity insists that the others revolve around him; rather each of them voluntarily circles and orbits around the others….If this is ultimate reality, if this is what the God who made the universe is like, then this truth bristles and explodes with life-shaping, glorious implications for us.

My life is not easier now than it was three years ago, it’s harder. But I’m climbing onto new plateaus all the time, taking in views I would have killed for three years ago. They are delightful and surprising because I didn’t engineer them, God did. I just set my crappy, old baggage down and started climbing.

I have many pitches left. Fasting coffee is just one of them.

Fill up with Love. Pour out. Repeat.

/ Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

In a million years, I never thought I’d attend a Christian conference, much less enjoy one. They looked cultish and weird, with fog machines and a band cranking out Jesus songs while people hollered with their arms in the air and tears on their cheeks.

But then I went to one, and for the hundredth time since I began following Jesus like I mean it, I got to admit I was wrong.

How easily we accept the broken state of the world, kind of like we do the presence of smog. We breathe it, we lament it but what can we do?

Christian conferences are a reprieve, because in a stadium filled with people who boldly seek salvation from a God they can’t prove, the smog lifts and the Holy Spirit descends.

I know, because I was at this conference where this artist blew us away with an overhead projector and sand. All weekend, I glimpsed what the brand-new believers felt on the day of Pentecost, when Jesus sent his spirit to inhabit them. I sang with my heart, stood with my hands in the air and hugged the women next to me who I finally realized were my sisters.

Me. The girl who is too smart for all that, fell to her knees and trembled in the presence of God.

It’s hard to go back after that. And it’s painful to walk out of the stadium and into the smog, but that’s what Christians are supposed to do. Fill up with the love of God, then go spill it on people who desperately need it. It’s a system Jesus explained repeatedly to his followers and Jewish religious leaders.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Fill up with love. Pour out love. Repeat.

Have a great weekend.

Welcome Atheists.

/ Erin Kirk / 6 Comments

Lately, I’ve been reading atheist blogs because I am fascinated by faith in all its forms.

I’m not interested in shouting over who’s right or wrong – there are enough people doing that. Rather, I’m interested in how people decide what to believe.

An avid rejection of church behavior (Christian in particular) seems to fuel many of the blogs. The Crusades, the antics of Westboro Baptist Church, the flaming mess that is the homosexuality debate in America, all seem foremost in the minds of a lot of bloggers.

I get it. My conscience recoils at that behavior too, and for years, it helped me rationalize my rejection of God. But had I shut out the noise and read what Jesus and his disciples actually said, I might have seen things like this:

You my brothers and sisters were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:13-14

The Bible has a lot to say about love, but I’m not sure you’d know that by casually observing the church. Where in scripture does it say, Christians must deliver a constant public service announcement about the justice of God?

Yes, I believe in the God of justice before whom we will all stand and explain ourselves, but I also believe in the God of love and mercy. And if, as the Apostle Paul says, it’s the kindness of God that leads men to repent, and we’re so concerned about the repentance of others,

why aren’t we kinder?

So, my intention with this space is to highlight people living the freedom, kindness and love of God, whether they call it that or not – the sort of love that makes the world more fragrant and beautiful, like orange blossoms do in spring.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Foster

Look at this cop giving socks and shoes to a homeless guy. Is he a Christian? I don’t know, but he is doing what Jesus said: Love your brother. Clothe him.

Yes, the Bible is controversial and demanding, it always has been. Of course there are things in it I wish were not, but conventional wisdom is overrated. I love that Jesus is still defying conventional wisdom:

  • Stop grumbling.
  • Forgive your enemies.
  • Don’t be proud.
  • Pray for people who persecute you.
  • Trust Me.
  • Give money away.
  • Feed the poor.
  • Worship God.
  • Serve one another.

It could take the rest of my life just to get that right, so I really don’t have time to get that splinter out of your eye. I’ve got a big log in my own.

Ultimately, holiness is always an inside job, and when it’s done well, it’s illuminating. God willing, those are the people you’ll find here.

So welcome to a conversation about freedom and love. I follow Jesus Christ but I welcome atheists, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims to the conversation. Welcome gays and lesbians. Welcome hunters and PETA activists, left-wing, right-wing and whatever the Tea Party is. Welcome all you who are heavy laden and weary.

Let’s go find some rest.