love is...bind?

confession...song lyrics are not my strong suit...especially making them out in a song...one of my favourite miss-hearings has to be that of the dido song titled "white flag." i always thought she was saying "i will go down with this ship, and i will poke my eyes out and surrender. there will be no white flag above my door. i'm in love and always will be." well, she's actually saying "and i won't put my hands up and surrender." and for the record, just now as i was googling the lyrics, i see that i'm not the only one who has made this mistake. apparently i don't have to feel as dumb about this one, after seeing similar admissions from other people.


well, i did it again...maybe i should say, "oops, i did it again" :-) this time with a jesus culture song called "let it rain." this one's actually gonna be more embarrassing to admit because it will reveal how stunned i really can be, especially when i knew the title and that the song is about rain. the song starts, "let it rain, let it rain. open the floodgates of heaven. let it rain. i feel the rains of Your love. i feel the winds of Your spirit..." without delaying my embarrassment any longer, when i first heard the words i actually heard and pictured "i feel the reins of Your love."


as you recover from your laughter, let me go on to say that i eventually realized on my own what the right words are. however, every time i hear the song and it comes to that line i still hear and envision reins.


while i'm wrong as far as the song is concerned, i'm actually right where the love of God is concerned. 2 corinthians 5:14 says this: "the love of Christ constrains us." i love that verse. the word constrain, according to the oxford english dictionary, means to compel someone to follow a particular course of action--kind of like the reins i keep seeing and hearing in "let it rain." this isn't the kind of love that overlooks or ignores failures in a 'love is blind' kind of way. rather, it's the kind of love that keeps me from always failing. this kind of love is a keeping, compelling, guiding kind of love. it makes sense then to consider the word origin for constrain...middle english from old frenchconstraindre and from latinconstringere, meaning to 'bind tightly together.' yeah, the love of Christ binds...and that ain't bad :-) love is blind? blinding love? uh uh. i'm talking binding love :-p


no matter which way you look at it, there's a controlling feature about this kind of love...controlling in a good way. whether you're talking about your love for God--ie, your "love of Christ"--or God's love for you--ie, the "love of Christ" for you--there's a controlling, keeping, compelling, guiding force at work. your unadulterated love for God will stop you from doing things that would otherwise disappoint Him...like being unfaithful, for example. and God's matchless, unparalleled, always pursuing love won't relent until you know how serious He is in His love for you...like being faithful even when it's not yet reciprocated. let me just add that control is good...think workplace health and safety controls...think traffic controls...don't get all bent out of shape thinking your independence and identity will be lost...in fact, your independence and identity will be best realized through constraint. rooted and grounded in love (ephesians 3:17), you'll never be more free.


the way i see it, lately and daily i have felt the reins of His love, tugging on my affections and my desires and my passions and my focus to keep me in line...to keep me on course...to remind me "how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is" (ephesians 3:18) for me. with that kind of love i can agree with the last part of dido's chorus, "i'm in love and always will be." however, as for the rest, i'm totally waving the white flag of surrender as i surrender to God's binding, matchless, unparalleled, always pursuing love.

the luck of the draw

"today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. you will have to be lucky always."


this was the ira's statement to margaret thatcher, following the  failed october 1984 assassination attempt on her life, where they claimed responsibility and promised to try again.


i heard this on cnn the other night, while listening to yet another report on the recent fire fight and kill that claimed the life and secured the death of obl. as soon as i heard the quote, i knew a blog entry would follow. it was such a compelling statement on their position regarding britain's occupation of ireland. disturbing, yes; but compelling. and at first listen, i thought, "how pithy. i don't agree with terrorism, but who can argue with a statement like that? the ira made the claim that they only needed to get it right once. thatcher would have to get it right every time."


the more i thought about this, the more i thought--nay, prayed--that i would get it right every time...that i would get lucky every time...over and over and over and over again...


this isn't a deep foray into the debate between terrorism and the fight on terror, or between luck and skill, but i want to say that like the ecclesiastical writer states, "the fastest runner doesn't always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn't always win the battle...it is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time." the king james version, which turns 400 years old this year, ends the passage this way: "time and chance happens to us all" (ecclesiastes 9:11).


if chance and being lucky have everything to do with being in the right place at the right time, then unlike the ira, i don't want to just be lucky only once. i want to be lucky every time. i want chance to be on my side every time. i want to be in the right place at the right time every time. i want to be lucky always. that doesn't seem like such a bad thing, especially on the days when i'm not the fastest or the strongest.


in my simple way of thinking, chance and luck are synonyms for God if i'm following Him, because as proverbs 16:9 says, "we can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." while "we may throw the dice...the Lord determines how they fall" (proverbs 16:33). every time. always. while He lets me shake and roll, i want to make sure my dice are guided by Him...every time. always.

so how do we make this happen? how can we be in the right place at the right time? well, the bible indicates that our steps are ordered by the Lord and His Word (psalm 37:23 and 119:133). if i want to get it right every time, be lucky every time, have time and chance happen to me in a way that i'm not overcome by setbacks or overwhelmed by a slower pace, then i need to be immersed in His Word...i can pray and talk to God until i'm blue in the face about wanting Him to direct my steps and He might honour that request, but it's more likely to happen when i regularly let the Word of God speak to me by actually reading it and letting it read me.

the way i see it, time and chance are going to happen to me...but i can be in the right place at the right time if i'm letting God order my steps. and my stops. my steps are numbered, according to job 14:16...so He knows exactly where i am, even and especially in those times when i'm commanded to be still, or to wait, or to hold my ground...

so rank me with the iron lady. i want to be lucky always, not just once :-) the idiom "the luck of the draw" works here, which is to win something in a competition where the winner is chosen purely by chance, and not necessarily because they are the fastest or strongest. in keeping with my synonymous association and interpretation of God and chance, i've been chosen purely by God to win--not because i've been predestined as an individual, but because He has promised to guide the steps and the dice and the luck of the draw for everyone who turns to Him and trusts.

the odds are in my favour and i'm favoured to win, not just once, but always :-)

a 'peace' of my mind

i read this at work the other day: peace of mind depends on strength of mind.


it made me think of this: God has given us--not a spirit of fear--but of love, power, and a sound mind.


and this: a double-minded person is unstable in all their ways.


let me share a piece of my mind...t'will be a tad tautological, but i do have a 'peace' to share :-)



to have strength of mind is to have a sound mind, and vice versa. the 2 are relatively synonymous. this refers to self-discipline, self-control, sobriety...all those words that speak of good judgment and discretion...all those words that fly in the face of desire, which is healthy when it causes us to positively act, but is all too often unheedy and over indulgent. for instance, let's consider saying one thing and doing another. i say i'm watching what i eat; what i really mean is that i watch the double cheeseburger meal get smaller on my tray as i take bite after guilty bite, all the while hoping you don't walk in mcdonald's and see me in the act of surfeit again. i said one thing and did another. that's pretty double and unsound, in my humble opinion.


now that's an incredibly reductive definition of being double minded, but still reveals that i don't have the discipline or control that i let on to you i have. i think it's safe to say having 2 minds isn't really a character trait to be proud of. one, it means i'm always speaking out of both sides of my mouth so that i'm attempting to satisfy the doubleness and play both sides of the fence; and two, it puts me in the precarious position of never being taken seriously or being thought of as a phony whose word is as good as a rotten hot dog on a hot summer day. it smacks of disingenuousness, and to be frank, that stinks :-)


so, God has given me a sound mind. this means when i'm of 2 minds, i'm not exercising my God-given reason; in fact, i've veritably forfeited it, and my rationale has been replaced with a reckless resourcefulness in that i'm using my mind in the 2-fold way that's always an option, but always a problem. believe me, it will catch up, and will result in an instability that people will pick up faster than the $20 bill you drop out of your pocket because of your misuse of money...and your mind.


the danger is that if i live like this i'll have no peace...because, like i already intimated, playing both sides of the fence and speaking out of both sides of my mouth means i'm always backtracking, covering my steps, picking up the pieces, trying to keep the story straight, etc. if i'm working the crowd from all angles, eventually it will catch up to me...not to mention the constant sickening feeling of restlessness and peacelessness (ps: i checked...that's a derivative of the adjective peaceless :-) ) over my disingenuous duplicity being found out.


ok, so the way i see it, i need to use the 1 mind i've been given in the way God intended, which means showing some restraint and making the kind of choices that don't contradict. my pastor jokingly but pointedly said yesterday morning that the brain is really a spiritual thing and people should use it more. i think that applies here. if double mindedness is bad and breeds instability, it conversely means that using the mind God gave me to exercise discretion and good judgment will result in balance...balance that doesn't leave me telling the same story a dozen different ways to half a dozen people who have already figured me out and don't respect me or take me seriously anyway.


do yourself a favour and be real the first time around. that way the second and third and fourth times around you won't have to try and remember what your story was the first time and to who. the result will be people who respect you, and an overarching peace and singularity of purpose that will make you that much more reputable in your relationships.