PASSION

Let's get a couple things straight here...
1) I have a fear of domes.
2) I HATE crowds.
3) I don't respond well to long, standing up, worship singing. Especially when everyone else is getting into the worship and I'm like, "Ok, any second now it'll click and I'll get it and be exactly like them." But... nothing.
4) I fall asleep during sermons constantly.
5) I HATE the cold.


So considering all of this, you would have thought that Passion would not be my cup of tea. But God is good and faithful, and I absolutely LOVED it. But not for the reasons you would think. 


I didn't have some amazing revelation, or life changing experience. I haven't discovered my purpose in life. I still don't consider myself a great worshiper (when I say worshiper, I mean the long singing that I am chronically unresponsive to). I don't even feel a completed peace and certainty about what I am doing. 


Passion 2012 uncovered the door, now it's just up to me to open it and let Him in.


I still have questions, doubts, concerns, and of course, that weed of hesitancy. But I am resolved to not passively sit aside and wait for all this to change. God's plan will ultimately reveal itself, but my ceaseless resistance is just me fiercely holding down the curtain covering His door in desperate attempt to maintain control over my life.


I sat there for the first 105 minutes of a night session, crossed armed, bitter at my inability to experience God like the 44,000 people were, and caught up in my various "struggles" of my unorganized room, that dang ball, college, etc. And suddenly, I feel something creak in the back of my mind. Something that was always present, but I had tried my best to stifle. It says, 

"Allison. Al-lis-son. When will you lay your weapons down?" 

Lay my weapons down. I am fighting with all I've got to build up my own frustrations for my dissatisfactions. That makes zero sense. Sorry, reader. Let me try again.

I have generated this hardness over me, convinced I am too messed up with my constant dwelling on all the wrongs or aches in my life like how I look, my disorganized room, other's opinions, etc. All of these things that are eating away at me, a little at a time, and are driving me to a place of discouragement. So in my typical Allison mind, the past couple months I have strived to stop dwelling in general. Block out everything that hurts, anything that forces me to examine my own feelings. And in that I have built something that refuses me to release my reins, to allow myself to let God romance me. It reminds me of a CS Lewis quote,

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must not give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

When Beth Moore was speaking, a phrase really stood out to me. She said,
"You cannot consume Him, but He can consume you."


The woman in Luke 8 was bleeding and considered defiled for 12 years, yet that didn't stop her from reaching out with all she had and grabbing hold of Jesus to be healed. She didn't ruin or contaminate Him, but He purified her. God has the power to relieve, cleanse, and resurrect. All of my imperfections can be erased in His presence, but my unending focus on them keeps me locked away in the dungeon of my heart. What can I expect when I ignore the door behind the curtain? I react in anger when God doesn't speak to me like He seems to be doing to everyone else at Passion. I experience frustration at my own incapabilities. So I sit there, moping and thinking it's useless, and make myself blind to the message God is screaming at me. 

LAY 

YOUR 

WEAPONS 

DOWN.

Can't you see how much I love you? You have no need to fight back in your sorrow. I have done the fighting for you. 

Rid yourself of self awareness.

Allison, you are mine.

So in a nutshell, here's what I took out of Passion; 

it's not whether or not I am dwelling, it is what I dwell on.

2012. Everything about this year scares me to death. I'm graduating, going to college, riding on a plane for 20 hours to Africa, leaving my friends, venturing into the unknown, and all those stupid Mayan theories don't make it any better.


In all this fear, I'm choosing to redirect my dwelling. I'm reading the whole Bible this year, a little at a time every day. I got the idea from the movie Julie and Julia: like when Julie starts the blog because it's like an AA regimen, or something you have to do everyday, one step at a time. And I have been putting this off for about 4 years, so I'm finally doing it. Just as Passion seeks to drop the curtain for next year, it already inspired me to drop mine. The reading will help me stay on track, help me keep my focus on God, and to keep me from fleeing back into the corner of heart, drowning myself in my own flaws.


He is so good. He is ever faithful and persistent, even against my endless attacks in this war I wage on myself. He is perfect, He is whole, He is the Redeemer here to atone and bind up my weary soul. 


I lay my weapons down.
I raise my white flag.
I leave my restrictions behind in the trenches. 
And I run full force to the door, where He has been patiently knocking through all of my resistance.


Allie


"It is in my experience that what you dwell on, is what you most likely become."