:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I tend to be on the more suspicious end of things when it comes to trends in the Christian blogging world. If I want to make myself sound virtuous, I’ll say that I’m discerning. If I want to confess I vice, I could say that I’m critical and a tad grumpy.

When I heard that a bunch of people were choosing “one word” as a kind of resolution for the coming year of 2011, I confess that my discernment/critical nature kicked into high gear. I can’t say why I was suspicious. I knew very little about it. I just saw that it was becoming a trend.

There are enough “trends” in the Christian world that I think you can’t help becoming suspicious. So many trends are based on flawed theology or at least an imbalanced perspective of discipleship. Need I mention the “me first” prayer of Jabez that Americans love?

I can’t remember the exact details, but one day in late 2010 I was praying and God started to work on my critical attitude. In fact, God gave me a word for 2011: redemptive. At first I was a bit miffed at the Holy Spirit. “Dang it! You fell for this trend too?” As I reflected on what that word could mean for 2011, I realized that God was converging a bunch of stuff that had been accumulating for years.

I realized that God wanted to use me to bring healing, growth, and hope. I began to look at everything I did through the lens of what lead to “redemption.” Were my words and actions helping someone heal or grow into a place of restoration and wholeness?

That really messed up my year in the best way possible. I had to delete a lot of potential blog post and book ideas. My arrogance and selfishness appeared over and over again.

I could tell all kinds of stories about the past year, but two significant projects arose out of that word: “redemptive.” One is my series of guest posts in 2012 called the Women in Ministry Series. I hope to offer an alternative to the women in ministry debate by sharing the stories of women who are actually in ministry.

Rather than slinging scripture at one another, I think it’s time that we just acknowledged that we’re divided on this one. While we all serve the same Lord, it’s time for those of us who believe in the role of women in ministry to find ways to encourage more women to pursue God’s calling for their lives. I also hope that those with a more limited view of women in ministry will be challenged to reexamine scripture after reading some stories in this series.

Along similar lines, I also began rewriting a series of blog posts on unity and exploring some practical principles of Christian unity. I have been putting these practical thoughts on Christian unity together in an E-book titled Divided We Unite. It will be released this January. A lot of our faith-fights can be traced back to trying to force unity where there can only be division, while also losing sight of what truly binds us together as followers of Jesus.

In an extreme understatement, my one-word for 2011 radically changed my ministry and work.

Is There a Word for 2012?

I don’t want to just “think” of another word for 2012 just to have one. Perhaps that was my skepticism of this project at the outset. We’d all just think something like, “Ooooh, this is cool! Let me think of a word… How about ‘awesomeness’?”

However, there is something to this format that really works. I think God likes to speak to us in simple ways, and just listening for one word can take a lot of pressure off us, making it easier to hear the Spirit speak.

The One Word website talks about the power of the word: “if you let it, your word will shape you and your year. It will guide your decisions and help you grow.” I think really does miss something. Like I said, I’ve got that critical edge to me. What you or I choose for ourselves doesn’t mean all that much in terms of life change and discipleship. The power here comes from focusing on what God wants to do in and through us. To that end, God can use this One Word project to help us focus on what he wants to accomplish in our lives.

Setting aside “skeptical me,” I asked God if he had a word for me in 2012, and I sensed that he certainly did: freedom.

In an election year, we’ll be hearing a lot about “freedom” and “liberty.” Most of the time these words will mean being able to do whatever we want. Freedom is often linked with individualism and individual rights. It can mean that, but I think God wants to teach me about freedom with boundaries and interdependence on others.

God’s freedom restricts us in some ways so that we are truly “free” to be the people he made us to be. One practice that has already started is the practice of saying a simple prayer each morning where I “offer my day” to God. He’s been impressing on me that living as a disciple who is free from sin and who is able to serve God means taking an intentional step at the start of each day. Paul often writers about “offering ourselves to God.”

This exploration of freedom is both exciting and challenging. The results are tantalizing, but the road forward will no doubt be filled with restrictions and struggles.

Who knows what could happen in 2012 with a word like freedom…

My annual April 1st book release is happening a day early due to some traveling we’ll be doing today and tomorrow. So, without further ado, I’d like to announce my next book release that you can both download AND read today:

Love Bites: A Story about Life, the Undead, and the Fate of Every Person Ever Bitten by a Vampire (Download It Now)

In this novella by Ed Cyzewski, Eva attends Stoker College in dreary Sporks, Michigan after a voice calls her there and finds intrigue, danger, and the kind of love that bites in a beautiful stranger named Thomas who believes unusual things about the undead. In fact, Thomas believes that all of the undead may be able to live forever.

Will Eva find true love without having to sacrifice herself? Will Thomas ever stop asking questions? Will Ned Ciwinski ever find a publisher for Coffeehouse Vampirology? Will Max the werewolf ever find a shirt? Unfortunately you’ll have to read all 15,600 words of this Love Wins/Twilight parody in order to find out.

You can download the full novella (all 15,600 words of it) for free here.

If you can, please consider chipping in $.99 for an ebook download from Amazon.com. It’s a huge help to me, and enables me to continue offering fun projects like this at no cost to the general public.

Don’t forget: There’s more to this than just this blog post. This is a real book you can download and read.

If you enjoy this book, please consider:

• Tweeting: “Farewell @edcyzewski! #LoveBites http://bit.ly/dPXYBy.”
• Posting to Facebook: “Farewell @Ed Cyzewski! Love Bites: http://bit.ly/dPXYBy.”
• Returning to http://inamirrordimly.com/love-bites in order to download Love Bites for $.99. Every little bit helps!
• Contacting Ed, edcyzewski (at) gmail (dot) com, so that you can learn when the Love Bites Special Edition is coming out with a discussion guide, a sample chapter from Coffeehouse Vampirology, and an exclusive interview with Ned Ciwinski.

Previous April 1st book releases:

The Lost Tweets of Jesus: Uncovering the World’s Greatest Ancient-Digital Mystery (book to download)

Coffeeshack Theology (blog post)

I left for seminary an hour early on my first day of classes. I wanted to make sure I had time to grab a cup of sweet coffee from the cafeteria, casually browse through books in the student lounge, and then sit in class well before it began.

For me, seminary was the place to get all of the answers. I’d grown up in a fundamentalist church  learning all kinds of stuff about the end times, heaven and hell, and a host of other interpretive issues related to the Bible, particularly: how literal should we take the Bible? And especially, why do we interpret some parts of the Bible literally, while we others are not?

My pastor, at a church that wasn’t fundamentalist, had warned me that seminary would not give me all of the answers. It was sound advice that took years to sink in. As of that morning, I was beginning my quest to find the truth.

Cruising down the northeast extension of the PA Turnpike, I was fifteen minutes away from the seminary when traffic stopped.

We turned off our engines and waited.

Somewhere ahead of us, a truck had turned over, spilling oil, chemicals, acid, or something else horrible onto the road. I can’t quite remember. We eventually turned around, drove back down the highway, and took a series of detours on unfamiliar roads.

I made it to class where, in a rather surreal scene, our professor was leading everyone in a song. They were singing the Hebrew alphabet  to the tune of Yankee Doodle. On a side note, my girlfriend’s (as in the girlfriend who is now my wife) brother had taken Hebrew in college and knew the same song, so the next time we got together, we sang our mastery of Hebrew for her.

Sometimes the pursuit of truth leads us to traffic jams, unfamiliar places, and unexpected destinations. I never would have guessed I’d spend two-three hours sitting in traffic, winding through back roads, and then singing the Hebrew alphabet after arriving an hour or two late for class.

There are a lot of things about Christianity that surprised me over the years as I filled myself up with truth at seminary.

While I recommend seminary, especially my own seminary, seminary and truth have something in common: they have their limits. And when we say something has limits or can only do so much, that isn’t the same as saying they are bad or deficient in some way.

Limited truth is not the same as relativism.

Rather, we need to correct misperceptions and try to see their true value for what it is.

In my own case, I thought that having a handle on the truth, knowing how to interpret the Bible, and being able to spot fundamentalist errors would make me a deeply spiritual person who is close to God. Truth can set us free since it can lead us to God, but truth is not enough by itself.

In many ways, my seminary helped me figure this out. There’s more to Christianity than finding the right answer. There’s more to following Jesus than preserving what he taught.

By the time I left seminary, I had a lot of answers, but I didn’t have a lot of God. I’d given myself to my books and papers, but something was missing. My pastor had tried to warn me. My professor in a Christian spirituality class had tried to warn me. But I wanted answers, and I worked hard to find them.

I soon learned that truth couldn’t do what I expected.

If Jesus really wanted us to get his teachings 100% correct, he would have left us a document in his own words. Instead he trusted his followers to sort it out for us—entrusting his truth to a community. Just giving us the truth wasn’t enough. In fact, he gave us a whole lot more than the truth.

This week I want to look at the limits of truth, the ways we mishandle truth, and a full picture of the Christian life with truth in its proper place.

Tomorrow’s Post: The Problem with Defending the Truth

I started to believe something about six to nine months ago. The results have been both surprising and tantalizing.

I’ve tried to begin each day by asking God what he wants me to do and offering my work to him.

Some days go better than others, but there have been some real breakthroughs. Whether working at a day job and writing on the side or cobbling together a bunch of freelance writing projects, I’ve struggled to serve God through my work.

I was wandering from project to project praying for a paycheck.

However, when I started to believe that God cared enough about my work to lead me, something began to happen. I sensed a nudge from God to change something. As I pursued that direction, the ideas came, ministry happened, and I was enjoying my work.

Stepping out in obedience helped me focus better. Though I have still struggled with distractions and have lost my focus more often than I care to admit, my good days are becoming better and more frequent.

In addition, I’d been pursuing several paths forward that were turning into dead ends. However, I kept pushing myself to work harder because I thought that I needed to just persevere and there would be a pay-off. As I began to listen for God’s leading, he steered me away from these pursuits until one day the light came on.

These paths were not working.

As I let go of them, he brought some new opportunities my way and freed me to do the kind of work I enjoy.

All is not perfect in my professional life. I still struggle some days to stick to my schedule and to meet my goals. But moving into God’s freedom isn’t necessarily an overnight process. Learning to listen to his voice takes practice.

The difference between my old path and the nudges forward that God gives is found in the fulfillment and joy that my work brings me today. In addition, as I obey his leading I’m finding untapped passions that I have not pursued. In a sense, today’s obedience gives me hope that God can bring some exciting possibilities tomorrow.

I still work hard. There are some very uncertain things about my work right now. However, investing in the areas that God brings to mind have brought new opportunities and insights that have dramatically changed my work life into one that is purposeful and even worshipful at times.

I feel like I can persevere in the race because God is leading me and setting me free from my dead-end plans and bad habits.

It all started with a simple prayer, “What do you want me to do today Lord?”

The results have convinced me to keep saying this prayer.

Want to read more stories about God setting people free? Drop by Faith Barista today for the Thursday Faith Jam.

Tomorrow’s Post: How Running God’s Race Together Changes Everything

During December and January my book Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life (about),will be available from NavPress.com at 35% off (coupon code K82E1D8E6).

In light of this offer, starting December 15th and ending at 7 pm EST on December 31st 2009, the Coffeehouse Theology: Bible Study Guide will be available as a free PDF for download. This guide, which complements Coffeehouse Theology, provides group or personal Bible studies under the guidance of a series of theologians, commentaries, and discussion questions.

There is a limit of one print out per person. Need more copies for your group? Then share this page with your friends or place an order with NavPress.

This offer ended December 31st at 7 PM EST.