Jesus is ___________.

I have a lot of thoughts about Jesus. Living by myself, without any family nearby, Jesus is the only constant person I can count on (and honestly, even if I was married with tons of family around, that would still hold true). His love is astounding in its reach, fervor and faith. He’s the most inspiring, perfect person to have ever walked this earth (that’s what happens when God takes on flesh). Even seemingly insignificant action he did have and continue to send tidal waves through the conscience of humanity (see the two word sentence in John 11:35).

But you know what? As great as all of that is–and it is–a lot of times, Jesus is just making me really uncomfortable.

I’m embarrassed to admit it. I know I should be 10000% comfortable with his love and his example. I wish I could say I freely accept his gifts given out of love and grace. But I don’t. Instead, when the good things start piling on, I become either suspicious (“I’m just waiting for the bad to start” I recently told my best friend after a particularly wonderful series of events) or I start scratching to find what I did to deserve this (as my sister reminded me, “It’s not about what you deserve, but rather it’s about grace”).

You see, I would rather go into a situation expecting to be hurt, because then when my expectations are met, I’m ready for it. And if they’re exceeded, if I’m not hurt as much as I anticipate, great. Bonus happiness. What I am not used to is having a situation that I have no control over–but that looks really good–dropped into my lap. That in and of itself is something I struggle to receive (“A gift? For me? Why?”) but then if–PLOT TWIST!–I can’t have any control over it I get really nervous. I talk all the time about how much I love freedom. My catch-phrase is “Be free”. I have that tattooed on my shoulder in Swahili. The one time my truck was in the bodyshop for two weeks getting repaired, I went into a mild depression because my freedom to come and go had been taken away. And yet, despite all of that freedom, I have a really hard time letting the Spirit work freely in my life, and an even harder time letting Jesus freely give and take things in my life.

How ridiculous is that?

I’ve started ending every night with the prayer of Examen as it was explained to me at a conference I recently attended. You begin by taking a moment to express your gratitude to God for little gifts you saw that day. Then you ask his Spirit to show you when in the day you were walking in Freedom and Light, and when you were not. As I was praying that over the weekend, the Lord pointed out to me that I’ve gotten into a nasty habit of setting people up for failure, because I expect them to, and wouldn’t it just be quicker if we got that out of the way? Even worse, I realized that it wasn’t just people I looked to fail, it was also God. It was Jesus. I was perversely trying to test his love and gifts.

That’s not walking in Freedom. The Spirit whispered as I squirmed, uncomfortable and wishing a bit that I hadn’t been so honest with God that night. That’s not Freedom. That’s fear and that’s what you’ve started to walk hand-in-hand with. 

But, I might get hurt! Isn’t it smarter to just avoid things all together to save myself the hurt? I tried explaining my logic.

Nothing in this life is promised to you except for my continued love for you. The gifts, the people in your life are not yours to hold onto and keep and never let them leave. They are blessings that I allow to move around you as best benefits you both and brings my glory. Remember, you’re not the only star in this show. 

Ouch. And of course, completely true.

The next day, as I was still considering that and reading my Bible, I noticed how open-handed Jesus was with all the gifts his Father gave him. He never closed his fist and said, “Ok God. I’m gonna hold onto these fish. Cause I might get hungry later and need a snack.” He never demanded that God keep his best friends by his side at all times. (Lord knows I would) He was unconcerned with that because, one, he knew his Father well enough to trust him. And two, Jesus–better than anyone else ever will–understood the way the Father works and how every good and perfect gift is from him, but they weren’t given for us to hoard and hide and demand control of. They’re ultimately only lent to us for a season.

Ugh. Jesus you’re making me so uncomfortable! I whined.

Well, yeah, (does Jesus ever smirk or laugh when he’s talking to you? It’s a pretty normal thing for me) that’s kinda my thing. I didn’t come to make everything bunnies and flowers, I came to wake up humanity and bring you back to the Love.

Jesus much of the time makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Because he is perfect and I am not but oh how good that is. And how much harder I strive towards his perfection once I remember that I’m nowhere near it.

Come Thou Fount

When I was younger I was very resentful of people that I saw as living lives that I saw as being more “blessed” than my own. I’d read about people having trucks of bread delivered at their door so they could feed their orphanage, plane tickets would be waiting at the airport counters, completely paid off for them. As grew older, more and more of my friends started to share with me stories of how God would just provide for them through others–a large amount would show up in their bank account, a car would be practically given to them…I knew I should’ve felt unconditionally happy for them and been inspired by the goodness of God, instead I couldn’t help feeling resentful because–to my thinking–God and humanity preferred them over me. I wasn’t graceful enough, wasn’t kind enough, sweet enough…good enough.

It’s a story as old as humanity itself. As far back as Abraham we see people realizing that they are full of inadequacies and instead of letting God work through those faults, they try to circumvent them entirely by laying out their own elaborate plans to make things “work”. Rachel giving her handmaiden to Jacob so she could have children…Saul putting his armor on young David so he would have a fighting chance against Goliath….it’s pretty common, apparently. I know that’s my usual M.O. is to want to figure things out on my own. To work and scratch and fight for every little thing I have. I summed up my struggle against grace in an earlier blog post, so I won’t rehash it here, but let’s just say God’s still working with me on it.

Instead of teaching me a lesson in my preferred method of learning (hands on, lots of hard work involved), God has literally been dropping blessings in my lap. He’s kind of teaching me about grace via feeding tube.

When I wrapped up my trip in Ukraine, my bank account was at exactly $0.00. And due to a series of unfortunate events, it ended up dipping below that. Luckily, my parents had enough to cover my rent. But I came back to America with literally nothing. Which was fine. And within just days of landing, people had started to bless me generously. I was raised in the South, and we don’t talk about money here (it’s not nice), but I’ll just say it–without being solicited in any way, people gave me money. Sometimes it was just a $5 handed to me, sometimes it was an unexpected $200 given for no other reason than God had told them to. And it wasn’t just money, there was food too! One friend took me out for sandwiches on my lunch break, a professor brought a half-dozen doughnuts to school for me…and for the first time in my life, people are asking to go to get coffee with me. I’ve always wanted to have friends that like getting coffee and–even better–pay for it and do it only because they want to catch up and hear about Ukraine. That’s all the goodness you can ask for right there.

from Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel.

It’s astonishing to wake up one day and realize that all along, you were misunderstanding your standing with someone you’ve known all your life, and yeah, you always knew they loved you, but you never fathomed just how much they loved you. People would tell you, “They’re crazy about you”, but of course, actions speak louder than words. But then, the actions were always there, you just weren’t able to see them. And one day they’re clear-enough and you recognize them and all that means and you–someone that’s always been so tough and not one for emotion at all–is in actual tears because all everyone said was true and even more and it’s slaying you.

That’s the closest I can come to describing it.

Out of all the blogs I’ve written, this one has the least concise point in it. It was written out of an overflow of gratitude provoked by an outpouring of love. It’s not exotic, it’s not particularly unusual, but out of all the things I’ve written lately, this is one of the most important.

What more can I write? That the words of ‘Come Thou Fount’ mean more to me than ever? That I feel as if every moment of love I understood before this was just a mirage? That I’m the girl at the beginning of Jars of Clay’s ‘Love Song for a Savior’ and I finally understand “the meaning of it all”? Yes, yes and yes. I can say all of that. Or I could just leave it with the words of the apostle:

“Every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows.”

(James 1:17, NIV)

Losing Your Idealism

I have been called pessimistic, cynical, a downer. And yes, I do have a tendency to see the dark side of things (that comes with being a criminology major…although I prefer to call my dark streak “realism”) but despite that, there were (are?) still a few things I was quite idealistic about. Humanity was one of those things.

This past semester, while sitting in my class on the philosophy of ethics and listening to the often-times ethically bankrupt statements of classmates, I had the thought, “I might lose faith in humanity. Soon.” You might’ve expected that to have occurred earlier than this. After all, I’ve befriended girls younger than I who have been sold nightly for their bodies. I’ve written extensive research papers on some of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers in the world. I’ve met little children across the globe that have been wantonly abandoned by the people who’re supposed to care for them all their lives.

Despite that all, I’d always been secretly starry-eyed over humanity.

These days, you’re more likely to find me watching an intellectual foreign film than the latest blockbuster, but I still swoon over The Terminator and Batman because these are–at their core–fundamentally human stories. And not just stories about humanity, but truly wonderful battle hymns of the beauty and the essential capacity for goodness of humanity. I’ve learned to operate in shades of grey–every story has a backstory; rarely is there a true “good guy” and “bad guy” in real life–but that is not my natural predilection. I want things to be black and white, wrong or right. And in some ways, I’d still been able to hold onto that.

I’m American by birth, so you know, Nazis are the devil. They aren’t even spoken of as individual humans, but as a sadistic, shared-brain group of pure evil. Their crimes against humanity were always described in vaguely horrific ways. And despite having been taught that from the moment I began schooling, I had at best blurry, unfocused ideas of WWII and all the crimes occurring before, during and after it. No one in my family was killed or maimed in WWII. All my ancestors were in America years before war rumbles began. In other words, I couldn’t begin to understand it.

While in Ukraine, I visited both the Chernobyl museum and the museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII). And in Budapest, I visited the former prison and torture cells that are now part of a museum appropriately titled The House of Terror. These museums–with their graphic imagery, artistically emotive exhibits and chilling statistics–shook me to the core. I left each of them with less understanding of why anyone would want to start a war, and more understanding of the ugly brutality of war. But it was the people I met and came to care for that disturbed me the most. I was there when a dear friend of mine wept during a film about the hardships Jews faced in late 19th century and early 20th century Ukraine because those were her people. I sat in awed silence as two new friends I made in Kyiv told me about their brave participation in the recent Maidan protests. I began praying with more fervor than ever for peace because my heart has become so attached to so many that would be affected if an all-out Russian/Ukrainian war happened.

In Ukraine, for the first time in my life, I felt like I was able to comprehend and handle the widespread depravity and (just as-harmful) apathy that ravages so much of humanity. And this time, it wasn’t nameless, faceless groups, or mentally ill, marginalized individuals that I understood to be a part of this–it’s a seemingly-overwhelming majority.

One of many boards full of the faces of those missing and killed since the beginning of Maidan.

One of my favorite prophet/poets Josh Garrels sings in his manifesto The Resistance, “How do good men become part of the regime? They don’t believe in resistance.”

I saw that over and again in Ukraine. When no-one spoke for them, an entire people group were nearly extinguished. When no-one spoke up, a country became so corrupt that hundreds of it’s citizens could “disappear” without an alarm sounded. When the nations of the world don’t speak up, a plane full of innocents is shot down. Apathy is perhaps the most destructive attitude in the world. And it is by and far affecting most in the world. Apathy isn’t just a lack of caring–plenty of Americans “care” about civilians dying in Israel and Gaza, or girls kidnapped by terrorists in Nigeria–apathy is a lack of action. Action doesn’t have to be violent. I firmly believe that every person should search and know their souls and if their conscience would allow them to ever take violent action to protect or not. But action is required. And I don’t see that in our world today.

So humanity has lost its sparkle to me. I’ve given up faith in the belief that most people would do something if they knew what was happening. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up the hope that one by one, that can change. And I have certainly not given up my belief in the essential worth of each human being. In two years, I plan on beginning my masters in International Human Rights, and after that, nothing would please me more than spending every day of my life assisting another worthy human being and convincing them of that worth.

Humanity, I don’t have faith in you anymore. I won’t expect the best from you. But I swear to keep hoping for you to prove me wrong, and to never stop fighting for that.

And hey, if I ever start settling into apathy, someone please shove this post into my face as a stern rebuke

Quit Expecting Food Poisioning

I am used to roughing it. To be honest, I enjoy it and get a certain thrill of pride every time I accomplish some task or survive some grueling experience (I recently went down to south Texas where I spent a long weekend camping on the beach with friends. We didn’t have toilets, tents, electricity, running water or cell service and the last night there were thoroughly drenched by rain. It was glorious). I grew up listening to my dad’s stories of his time in the military in such places as the Amazon rain forest and the Sinai desert and my mom’s stories of life in 1980’s southern Africa. I adore Bear Grylls. I’ve been traveling in Africa since I was fourteen–and those trips are rarely comfortable for an American. I’ve gone weeks without showering, days without changing clothes, repeatedly eaten much less than the 1800 calories I’m supposed to consume in a day, and slept on concrete/dirt/cow poop floors for nights on end. And I loved (almost) every second of it.

Ukraine does not require any of that from me.

Upon landing in Budapest after a delightfully solitary 20+ hours of travel, I was found myself searching the airport for guns. I mostly go to Africa when I’m abroad, so I’m used to stepping off the plane and being greeted by men in police or military uniforms, carrying AK-47’s and other intimidating weapons. Budapest was almost suspiciously free of that.

What is this? I caught myself thinking, as I failed to spot anyone carrying anything larger than a stick. The next 16 hours in Budapest proved to be more of the same, violence-free, euro-standard as I was guided around the city by my missions leader for the summer, Clinton White. We ate at a cool outdoor cafe, saw castles lit up along the river at night, and stayed in a hostel that not only was relatively quiet and very clean, but also had free WiFi. The next day, we ate at McDonald’s (which just happened to be located inside a gorgeous train station built at the turn of the century) and hopped on a train that was equal to American ones in every way except it had really fast WiFi, which made it better than any train I’d ever ridden on in the States.

As I was sitting on the train, watching peaceful and pretty countryside villages roll by, I was mentally listing off all the aspects of travel I was accustomed to that I was not getting on this trip. Uncomfortable travel arrangements? No. Uncomfortable sleeping arrangements? No. Plain or poor food? No. Immediate danger to my person or possessions? I mean, not immediate…Russia is a few days away. So…no. Instead, I was traveling in comfort, to a place where I now have my own bed and room (invaluable to an introvert like myself), ridiculously fast internet, fantastic food, gorgeous mountains and castles to explore all about me, and new friendships that were instantly formed. In fact, the only “hardship” I’ve experienced (and this will likely be the only one for the entirety of the trip) is the mosquitoes that sneak into my room and nibble on me. (And no, these mosquitoes don’t carry malaria or dengue or any other horribly exotic disease.)

Ministry–so far–is stress free. Yesterday I traveled with the six members of the World Race team and five new Ukrainian friends to the town of S–I can’t even say it, let alone spell it yet–to visit and play with children at an orphanage. I’m not sure of the details of their situation–who runs the orphanage, where they receive funding, what care looks like for the kids, etc.–due to being a bit off my game (thanks jet-lag) but I do know the children were all wearing clean clothes, looked well-fed, and were for the most part, happy and carefree. This was a welcome change from the situation most orphans have in Africa. An orphan is an orphan, and no matter what the rest of their situation looks like, it’s sad and hard. But all my ideas of soviet-era orphanages, with kids stuffed in cribs and left to lay there all day were blessedly shattered.

Honestly, with this venture it seems to me as if God is just showering me with all the good things–things that are specifically good to me. Budapest was like Paris (which had been my favorite city) but better due to its lack of crowds and tourists. Ukraine is stunningly beautiful. Cyrillic is surprisingly easy to learn and read. There’s castles, abandoned soviet military sites, and acres of forested Carpathian mountains surrounding me to explore. Ministry will include camping, hiking, and lots of discussions over excellent coffee, plus playing with some of the cutest kids I have ever laid eyes on.

I’ve always struggled with the idea of being part of the Bride of Christ. Probably because I’ve always had an excellent relationship with my dad–and never much for romance–I’ve seen God as my Heavenly Father. But these unexpected gifts seem less like those that a father would give his child, and more like the perfect adventure planned by someone who knows me intimately more like a–ok, I’ll say it–lover than a father.

This is a concept that I’m obviously still coming to grips with. I admire how freely many Christians around me can accept and revel in all forms of God’s love, but my hesitance to indulge in any form of romance meant I never pursued that facet of Christianity. I never prayed for it, never particularly desired it, but my whole train ride from Budapest to the Ukrainian border, as I kept praying my earnest little prayers (“God, tell me what my purpose is in going here. What work would you have for me. What words and deeds to do. Etc etc.”) he kept saying, “Hey, this is an adventure I have planned just for you. Yes, I will use your obedience and desire to serve me and my people. But why don’t you just enjoy the good things and quit expecting to get food poisoning? I love you, and I delight in giving you the desires of your heart. Come away with me, and quit looking for the pickpocket who might steal your passport.”

The Pursuit of Danger

“Are you still going to Ukraine?”

I have heard that question so many times in the past month or two. For the longest time, no one had even heard about the crisis in Ukraine—the protests, the violent clashes, and now the invasion of Crimea—and then it made the news in a big way. I’ve been very vocal about the fact that I’m going to Ukraine this summer. Some of my professors even know the details of my trip! Well, now that the news has finally broken stateside, instead of hearing, “You must be so excited about your trip!” I keep hearing, “You must not be going on your trip anymore.”

That caught me by surprise the first time I heard someone say that. They didn’t ask it, they stated it. As if, obviously, there was unrest in the country I was supposed to go to, so I couldn’t be going there now. What sane person would do that?

Here’s the thing though—I am still going.

Let me explain.

First of all, for any concerned parties, Uzghorod is on the western border of Ukraine—on the far end from Crimea and no where near Kyiv—and hasn’t seen any sort of violence over the political unrest. I’m basically going to the safest place in the entire country. Also, the organization I will be under—Iteams—has already assured me that if there is a need to move out of Ukraine once I’m there, they can easily relocate me to somewhere else in Eastern Europe. I will be working side-by-side with other foreign missionaries and with native Ukrainians, all who have a good handle on the political pulse of the nation.

Now for the immature, selfish, reason: the “danger” makes it a bit exciting. Don’t get me wrong. I hate that people are hurting and scared. I hate that. I pray for peace to come to Ukraine, and for an amicable end to the unrest. But I have a thirst for adventure and I possess the confidence that comes from being twenty, accompanied with the self-possession that comes from travel experience. On top of that, I grew up with a superhero for a dad, who filled my head with tales of his time in the Special Forces, and then supplemented those with epics like The Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood. All of that to say, I have none of the fears many in the American society do, and a heart for adventure. In the words of my mother, “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t been in a warzone yet.”

But the real reason I am still going to Ukraine is that God told me to.

Now if you don’t believe in God—or even if you do but you don’t know God like that yet—that statement probably sounds ridiculous. But I do believe God, and I do know God like that. As I wrote in my first entry about this trip, God told me to go. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone on a trip because of a message like this. In 2012 I went on a two-month long missions trip through eastern Africa at the Lord’s prompting. That trip was incredible and changed my life. I could write an entire book about that trip (heck, maybe some day I will!) and all I saw God do in the lives of my teammates, the people we encountered, and in myself. And, as I said above, I have my own reasons for wanting to go. But even if I didn’t, I would still go. Because God said so. It’s as simple as that.

My favorite chapter of the Bible is Hebrews 11. This chapter is a stunning record of the faithful acts of people that were pillars in the foundation of our belief. Heroes and heroines of the Faith. This list includes everyone from prostitutes to patriarchs to unnamed martyrs. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s quite the challenge. One verse sums up what I’ve spent 677 words trying verbalize: “…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

So why am I going to Ukraine, even now, with all the fighting and risk? Because I have faith in God, and he told me to.

I’ve never done this before, but this is a really big deal. If you’re curious about anything I’ve said in this post—particularly if you want to know more about listening to God and stepping out in faith—shoot me an email at annacmaclellan@gmail.com or if we see each other, just ask me about it!