This journal was commissioned as a gift for a couple, Becca and Zach, who were married this past weekend. It was very special for me to make. It has three sections, one section is ‘His Story’, the second is ‘Her Story’, and the third middle section is ‘Our Story’.
Materials: Book board, leather, waxed thread, old pilots maps, lots of patience.
For the past few weeks, my church has been discussing the concept of core sins. The background behind core sins is that there are nine basic sin traits (think a negative Myers-briggs), from which most other sins or harmful behavior manifest themselves.
My poison is Envy.
I had known this for a few years now. Envy comes from a desire to be unique–or, termed another way, more special than anyone else. Of course, the only way to identify yourself as more or less unique than others is to compare yourselves to them.
Is she prettier than me?
Can he come up with better ideas than I can?
I could be as financially disciplined as they are, but then I would be just as joyless…
I am sometimes deluded into thinking that others can’t see my envy because it doesn’t show up in the way it might be expected to (I’m different, remember, I can’t sin the way you think I should). I don’t care much about material things, so if you have a nice car or own a great home, I can pretty easily congratulate you on your success. However, if you start sharing your plans to travel the world, or start a new creative business, or talk about your rock solid faith– you might as well stab me with kryptonite. If you really want me to turn into a green envy hulk, tell me about your new book deal. I dare you. The worst thing you can ever say to me is, “You’re just like me, her, him, it, blah blah blah”. Those words make my skin crawl every time.
So over the last few weeks, I have been comforting myself with this thought: our sins are often times our strengths turned against us. I would tell people, “I wasn’t designed to follow the crowd, I’m never going to fit in, so I should just embrace my strangeness. Now I just have to learn to love others when they do cool things too!”
There is one problem with this, it completely takes for granted the fact that no one was ever ‘made’ for the crowd. Each individual is a beautiful, unique, intentionally crafted piece of art which God placed on earth. God has given each of us unique perspectives, feelings, experiences, gifts and talents. This is a belief I hold to my core.
Right up until it threatens how unique I am.
The problem with the concept of ‘the crowd’ is that it inherently assumes some sort of ‘otherness’ or separation between myself and the mysterious and ominous ‘them’. ‘They’ are all followers, I strike my own path. ‘They’ all feel comfortable together, I am awkward. ‘They’ set up the rules, I break them. ‘They’ are different from me.
But who are ‘they’? Are ‘they’ really different than me if you strip away all the fluff of humanity and get to the heart of each person? What am I if you take away the things which God has graciously bestowed on me? I am broken sinner with a streak of self hatred. Are ‘they’ any different?
Today, at church, God confronted me with how deep my envy has rooted itself into my perception of myself and the world around me. My envy causes me to constantly compare myself to others, to a fantasy life which I think I want (but ultimately would probably be my undoing), and to an imagined group of people who seem determined to get me to conform to a standard which doesn’t exist anywhere outside of my own mind. My envy makes me hate myself for not being like the crowd, and hate myself for when I am like the crowd. Worst of all, my envy takes my eyes off of Jesus. This is sin at it’s definition, it is missing the mark of Jesus.
Our pastor shared a verse today which I may consider having tattooed across my forehead, or I may at least put up on my bathroom mirror:
“If you think you are better than others, when you really aren’t, you are wrong. Do your own work well, and then you will have something to be proud of. But don’t compare yourself with others” Galatians 6:3-4
So this is my new goal: I want to start each new day by focusing my eyes on Jesus. I want a heart which is in tune with the Holy Spirit. I want a mind which is contemplating my own work, work which I am actively pursuing and doing. I want my words to be encouragement to others in their journeys. I want my prayers to be an intimate discussion between myself and a Father who loves me more passionately than any human heart could. I want my soul to be thankful, satisfied, and content in everything which I already have.
I want Jesus to break Envy’s power over me, and the first step is to lose sight of the crowd and keep focused on Him.
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
The Beirutista and I have known each other since elementary school. It is only recently that I have realized just how much we both really have in common. Since she is now a full time resident of Lebannon, our gatherings are limited to her annual visits home to family. She has brought me some beautiful gifts from Lebanon, and so during her last visit, I decided to return the favor.
Materials: book board, unlined paper, waxed thread, Sharpie, White Gel pen, leather & misc jewelry findings.
This is a journal I made a few months ago as a gift. There is a couple who is starting a new phase of life and a new journey. My prayer is that this helps them remember their steps.
Materials: Scrap leather, waxed thread, book board, unlined paper, a vintage shutter clasp.
I just finished reading a novel, which will remained unnamed because I don’t want to incur the wrath of true Literature Scholars whose tastes may be more refined than mine.
Anyways, one of the things I kept wondering throughout the length of the story was ‘When is something going to happen?’
That isn’t to say the story was without events, it just seemed to me they were all flat. They were the same events, of a sort, repeating themselves. The only change occurred at the very end. The heroine finds herself happily engaged to the object of her affection, and then she is too bashful to go into any details about their great romance. Up until this point, she had been for the most part static in her interactions with the rest of the world. She was either too ‘good’ of a person to stand up for herself when she was abused or too ‘simple’ to warrant needing anything from anyone. The one exception was the young man which she hoped to find herself engaged to, but whom she was too shy to truly pursue.
Simply put, the heroine was flat.
One of the reasons I give myself the luxury of reading novels (and watching too much Dr. Who) is because nothing teaches like the work of others. I come away from each completed novel with thoughts about how I can improve my own writing and storytelling abilities. I learned from this novel that characters who flatline are not very interesting.
Flatlined characters are difficult to relate to. Is there anyone you know who could really suffer the abuse of snobbish children for years on end without becoming either bitter or abusive themselves? Is there anyone who you know that really can hold their temper so well as to never lose it one frustrating defeat after another? Let’s try a different scenario, can you relate to someone who is always so angry that they never can be kind or sorry for what they have done? Characters who never admit they were wrong or (more likely) try to make up for it without admitting they were wrong? A character who is always the same in every situation puts up a barrier between themselves and the reader because the reader is either incredulous at their promoted goodness, or the reader is turned off by the character’s outlandish badness. Examples of interesting characters are ones who pretend to be good while harboring badness, or who is thought of badly but really has a heart of gold.
Besides being unrelatable, flatlined characters rob a story of interesting plot changes. For example, what if the frustrated governess completely lost her cool and gave her disruptive pupils a good thrashing? What would be the consequences? How would the story alter? How would she change? Most importantly, how would the reader view the change?
Since I finished the book, I have been thinking about my own characters and how little I actually know them. I have spent a certain amount of time with them in certain situations, but I have not begun to account for the gradients of circumstances which they may find themselves in. Are my characters different when they are relaxed on a beach compared to when they are fighting the evil of the world? A better question would be to ask if my characters could relax on a beach, or are they permanently put on edge? One of the skills I want to become better at, as a writer, is developing a deeper character before I start writing. I think if I take the time to practise developing characters first, and storyline second, I will find a wealth of possible plot points and interesting material to use.
What do you think? Do you like more consistent characters or ones who surprise you now and again?
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Over the past few weeks I have been pondering a repeated question. It is simply this: do I love x,y, or z enough to do it no matter what?
It is one of the biggest simple questions I have faced in a while. What set me on this track has been a re-examination of my beliefs about God’s will, my motives for creating art, and whether or not I will ever be Luke Skywalker.
Let me explain.
I think somewhere in my growing process between “I hate myself” and “God made me with purpose”, I became sidetracked with God’s will and a desire for Destiny. As I have spent time working through some of the issues surrounding self-loathing and gaining a better mental health perspective, I have been seeking out God’s perfect will for my life. There has to be one right? Some magical fast track to the best possible life where I am skinny, creative, happy, and never ever fight with my husband. I just have to find that narrow and windy road to get there.
Recently, the Capt’n gave me a book titled Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung. Similar to my current dilemma, it is a small book which packs a wallop. DeYoung makes the point that while God cares very deeply about every aspect of our lives because He cares very deeply about each one of us, there are few decisions which He will make for us. God gives us brains to–shocker–USE them. It is time to stop throwing responsibility on God for every aspect of our lives and start making some decisions about where we want to go and how we want to get there. We should always be seeking God’s wisdom, but seeking His wisdom and waiting around for some miraculous sign of His approval are two different things.
As I have been processing how to take responsibility for my decisions, it has lead me question my motives for what I do. I mean, when I was blindly searching for that elusive narrow path of ‘God’s perfect will’ my general assumption was that if I found it, He would financially bless me for finding it. If God designed me with a purpose, why wouldn’t He bless me for finding my precise niche? However, if we look at that statement from another angle, the question then becomes, am I seeking God’s will because I truly believe His will to be the best? Or am I trying to find it so He will bless me with comforts and what I think is best?
Interwoven in everything is a skewed longing for destiny. I want to find God’s will because I want to be the heroine who saves the world by using the force, I mean, ‘my giftedness’. This sense of a destiny which is waiting to be found increases my self absorption factor, and has me looking inward for a savior instead of up to Jesus. Instead of looking to the work which Jesus already did on the cross to provide my salvation, I continue to seek out a destiny of works which will get me into heaven. I need to give up the idea of being Luke Skywalker and learn to just rely on Jesus.
This is how I cam to the question of no matter what.
If I strip away the idea of ‘God’s perfect plan’ and start taking responsibility for my decisions, if I let go of financial motivations, and I look to Jesus to be my Hero, nothing is left but simply the task of doing the work. This is what creates the question. Do I love to be writer enough to have words on a page be my entire reward? Do I love creating mixed media art pieces enough to let the process of painting, gluing, and scribbling be the reward? Is practicing the craft of bookbinding enough if all I have in the end is a place for my thoughts?
This is what I mean about the question of no matter what: do I have enough passion to carry me through the journey no matter what the outcome is? Can I do the work for the sake of doing the work and the enjoyment of it?
This isn’t to say I believe it is wrong to want to make a career out of these things, or that God cannot use me or that He did not make me with design. My point is, I need my focus to be on going through the process rather than the outcome. I need my focus to be on the journey rather than what I might get out of the destination. Which is why this is such a big question: do I love these things enough to make the long journey for the sake of the journey alone?
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Recent conversations in my life have started me thinking on this question: what is the best way to preach the Gospel?
After much pondering and struggling with this question for many years in my own Christian walk, the only answer I feel sure of is that there is no answer.
There are so many theological and practical debates about how we should live out our lives as Christians and how to tell other people about Jesus. Do we drink? Do we dance? Do we sing at Sunday services? Do we have electric guitars? And did you know that drums are of the devil? The debate points are exhaustingly endless and I kinda don’t care anymore.
What I do care about is if people come to know Jesus, they are reunited with their Heavenly Father and gain the counsel of the Holy Spirit. That’s all I care about. How they came to know Jesus doesn’t’ matter. Whether it was a tract, a fake $100 bill, a deep cultivated relationship, a preacher on TV, a pastor’s message on Sunday, or a crazy man preaching on the street corner, I don’t care. The reason I don’t care is because preaching the Gospel is about the Who and not the How. Who we are preaching about will always be more important than how we are doing it.
Part of the reason I have come to believe this is because we are all going to fail. There will always be a time–whether from the pulpit or from a coffee shop–when we will try to share the Gospel and fall flat on our faces. However, I would rather try and fail a hundred times than never attempt because I’m not quite perfect yet. A hundred failures is a hundred opportunities for God’s grace and power to shine through my weaknesses.
Beyond failure, I have come to learn that God reaches different people through very different avenues. Some people need to be walked, hand in hand with one person, to the feet of Jesus. Others may need to feel the security of a gathering. Still others need to be alone with Him to hear His voice. We are all different and I’ve learned to understand that our differences–when we’re not fighting about them–make us a more whole and complete picture of who God is. He is a God of diversity and creativity. He is a God who sometimes speaks in a cloud of fire, and sometimes speaks in a whisper. Jesus is a man who embraced children and cast money changers out of the temple with a whip. The trinity of God is complex and surprising. Jesus is the only way to God the Father, but I refuse to believe there is only one path to Jesus.
So here is what I have determined for myself: I am going to follow the Golden Rule when it comes to preaching. I am going to preach the Gospel in a way which I would like to have it preached to me. I will invest in relationships over time, I will teach in settings appropriate to my strengths and gifting, but you won’t find me walking the street with a stack of tracts in my hand. It makes me uncomfortable when a stranger approaches me on the street, so I’m doubly uncomfortable when I am asked to approach others. I’ll leave the street preaching to someone else who loves to meet new people, who is comfortable in that space, and who God has gifted to do that.
Most importantly, this is what I am going to stop doing: I’m going to stop shooting others down from the sidelines. I’m going to stop telling people they are ‘doing it wrong’ because it doesn’t’ make sense to me or it makes me uncomfortable. If I am asked for advice or direction, I will gladly give it. Otherwise, I’m going to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT unless it is to give encouragement to people who are doing something I am not equipped to do.
I recognize there is a lot of fear and doubt attached to how we go about preaching the Gospel and what it means to be associated with “those crazies”. However, if you really think about it, the Gospel is a Crazy Story. There is nothing sane about a sinless man giving up His life for the rest of us who can’t even love the people closest to us well, not to mention the rest of the world. There is nothing normal about a God who could wipe us all out with a thought, but chooses to be patient and sacrificing so we can be reunited with Him. We teach a crazy love story. Get over being crazy. Start asking yourselves the question of what’s the worst that could happen if the Gospel is preached differently than how you think it should be? If a group of believers start doing strange bold crazy things for Jesus, what’s the worst that could happen? They might fail, so what? Hopefully, they will learn from the experience and do better next time. Maybe the worst thing which could happen is that they totally skew the message (hopefully unintentionally) and preach that Jesus is chicken. So what? Do we not trust that our God is bigger than one mixed up message and that He is able to call anyone to Himself through any means? And what if someone never once speaks in front of a group of people, but spends time serving individuals and walking alongside them through the difficult parts of life? What’s the worst that could happen? They may not have as big ‘numbers’ of people they save, but since when is following Jesus about numbers?
Here is the hard truth, there are people in the world who are choosing to live separated from God. In the end, this choice will lead them to Hell because God will not force himself on anyone, and Heaven is His domain. So we need every member of the body of Christ, doing whatever it is that they do best, to reach people and introduce them to Jesus. That’s it.
If I touched a personal button, please know I am aware that this summary leaves out a lot of loopholes and past situations in which the message of Jesus has been twisted for personal gain. However, I would encourage you to examine if the stories about TV pastors embezzling money or the lazy Christian who never shares their faith are really the majority. I’m sure you’ll find they just aren’t. There are too many Christians going about their day trying to introduce people to Jesus through whatever means and talents they have for it to be true. So let’s stop policing one another about how we preach the Gospel and keep pointing people to who Jesus really is.
Continuing the adventure,
Jess
Jess Boctor 