Just Believe, Part 1

Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to Him as righteousness.

After going to bed quite late last night with battle wounds from a late night "Rolfball" game, I woke up at 5:40 to an invitation from the Lord, saying He wanted to tell me something. To be perfectly honest, I was tired. I laid there awake for a few minutes, until a specific Scripture dropped into my heart. The first time I pulled it out and read over it, I didn't get.

Mark 8:29-36

And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things...And he said this plainly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me...For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"

Over the course of the day, this passage has steeped a bit in my heart like a good cup of tea, and I think I know a bit of what the Lord wanted to show.

A while ago I was praying for a friend of mine and the Lord showed a picture of multiple doors standing in front of her, with keys to unlock them. I asked the Lord what she needed to do to be able to unlock the doors and His answer surprised me that night and has surprised me almost every time I've thought of it since: Just believe Me. That's enough.

There is part of my heart that is still absolutely convinced that good Christians are equatable to chemical engineers. There must be an incredibly complex formula to pleasing God and doing His work, and to understand it I am obviously going to need a Master's Degree in being a Christian. "Just believe" sometimes just sounds too simplistic.

Enter Keith Green.

About mid-week last week, I was sitting in a undeniably funky funk. I had a feeling my own sin was the source of it, but was having trouble jumping over the "I'm a failure" hurdle into King David's "Man, I messed up but God sure loves me!" field.

My sister had to go into work for a few minutes, and after asking the Lord what I was supposed to do, I went with her for the sake of the piano. My sister's job is my only piano source at this point; there is a lovely grand that is open for me to play any time I am there. We walked in and I ran straight for the piano room. With little-to-no plan of what I was going to play, my eye caught the "Keith Green Ministry Years" music books and I dived for them. Over the next few minutes, I played that piano louder than I have in a long time and sang my heart out.

Create in me a clean heart, O God...Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation...I wanna die and let you give Your life to me so I might live...I want to take Your Word and shine it all around...When Your eyes are on this child, Your grace abounds to me...

The Holy Spirit did something, right there at that piano. I just sat and my heart felt as if it would burst from thankfulness for lives like Keith Green's and King David's. I take great encouragement from the fact that men who walked in power doing the Lord's calling on their life went through five million plus moments of "is it just me, or am I a complete and total failure?" and "I can't do this at all...it's got to be all You, God."

If you haven't heard Keith's music I highly recommend jumping onto Grooveshark.com and listening. (mash down HERE to go straight there). I read No Compromise a few weeks ago and it absolutely gripped me. I think I got through the whole thing in 2 or 3 days; I just could not shake the feeling that what God did in Keith's life is significant to understanding what He wants to do in mine. Maybe it was something about the fact that He was just some passionate kid who played the piano...that sounds familiar. :)

Before I read the book, I only listened to Keith's happy, upbeat, "Go Preach the Gospel!" songs. His heart-wrenchingly honest songs didn't catch my ear. Until, that is, I found myself in a desperate place where my pride had gotten cracked enough to say "Oh boy, this is going to have to be all God." Read the book, folks. I see Keith as someone who walked radically and boldly as who God made him to be and affected thousands upon millions of people because he obeyed, but he reminds me so much of David of the Psalms, because this radical man had struggles and had to repent and messed up and saw his own weakness.

Today, with the passage from Mark, these sorts of thoughts began to feel full-circle. (Bear with me, I know this is getting long! All this blogging's been pent up for months. ;)

Keith Green and King David, they were messed up.

BUT! They changed the world.

They believed God.

Belief. It's enough.

Part 2 tomorrow on how that Mark passage has anything to do with all of this and how setting your heart to believe is like sending heaven an invitation to invade your life.