Intense Divine Heart-Sculpting.

They always say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but I always do. And I think I always will.

I still read books with ugly covers. But only if they're recommended, or if they're required reading.

The book I'm required to read with my intern community right now is called A Work of Heart. And the cover has Michelangelo's sculpture of David on the front. Not ugly by any means, but not necessarily a book I would pick off the shelf and devour like all the other books with really fun covers that I buy simply because of their cover and not because of their notoriety.

All that to say, I should really work on my judgmentalism toward book covers, because even though this cover art isn't necessarily raptly gripping my attention, the words in this book are potent and powerful. It's called A Work of Heart and the subtitle is Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. That's something else I'd like to put my two cents in about. It seems that books can't get published these days, unless they have a subtitle. It's like the title itself just isn't good enough anymore. The title no longer tells what the book is about. It's the subtitle that's the clincher. It's the subtitle that now sells the book.

Anyway, understanding how God shapes spiritual leaders. Not just leaders, spiritual leaders. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of leader I am, and if I can even be considered a leader at all. I often think of myself as a follower, but if you ask anyone around me, they would tell you I'm a leader. I just don't know myself very well I guess. I'm convinced that's why I'm out here in the desert this year. I'm out here to not only fall deeper in love with the Lord, but to get to know myself better, to get to know the girl that God is pursuing a sacred romance with, because honestly, she's a stranger to me sometimes. I've denied the truths of my past for so long, denied the ways that some pretty pivotal circumstances have affected me, and in that I've denied the real me. I've always prided myself on rising above. Remaining resilient. It's good to rise above, but those things are still a part of me. Those things still effect who I am and who I will remain. It's the process of integrating those tragedies in such a way that I am able to grow and recognize, that without those tragedies, I wouldn't be who I am, I wouldn't have the desires, the passions, the abilities, the dreams.

So I was just doing my allotted required reading for the week and answering my questions for my core group that's meeting tomorrow night and I decided that I wanted to reflect via blog, because I think this stuff is pretty darn powerful, even if the cover isn't all that visually stimulating, at least not for me.

So one of the questions I was asked to answer involves courage and fear. One of the lines in the book says, "Many spiritual leaders do not lead from courage. They lead from fear."

I've never been a big fan of writing in my books, because I absolutely despise de-facing them. I treasure my books. I consider them my most valuable possessions. But I'm working on getting better at underlining things I like. And I really liked this line. So I under-lined it.

How true is this line? Throughout college I led from fear. I was afraid that if I wasn't the best possible YoungLife leader that I could ever be, if I didn't hang out with high school kids with every free moment of my day, then I wasn't fit to glisten in the eyes of my co-leaders, my team leader, my area director, my God. I was afraid that I wouldn't be a good enough Christian if I didn't have X amount of kids at club, X amount of kids on the bus to camp, X amount of kids accepting Christ. It's putrid. It's vile. It's a horrid way to live. Constantly believing that you're not good enough. And yet I did it, I've done it my whole life.

Many spiritual leaders do not lead from courage. They lead from fear.

I think that this year has been a slow transition of leading from fear, to leading from courage. I've dared to be brave in outlandish ways this year and I've never been so joyful, so exuberant, so elated in my whole life. To be brave, to have courage, is to have the most powerful weapon.

And then I started reflecting more on this year...and how in 6 months, people are going to be asking me, "So what did you learn during your year in the desert, your year in the middle of nowhere, your year in constant community?"

And I think I will respond that "This is the year I grew up. The year I learned how to be raw, to be naked, to be unashamed with my emotions, with my past, with the woman I am, the woman God has made me, designed me to be. This is the year. The year that changed my life."

So when I first started reading this new book A Work of Heart, I wasn't too into it. The print is really fine. The pages take like 5 minutes to read each, which is ridiculous because I'm normally a pretty fast reader, but 5 minutes a page? sheesh. So that immediately turned me off from the book. I gauge my interest in a book by how quickly I can turn pages. And if it's taking me that long to get through a page...then, it seems the book's not very interesting. But really it's just a really meaty book. As I continue to push myself through the pages, I begin to find these golden nugget lines that I want to remember forever like:

"All the leadership insight and expertise on the planet cannot, in the end, overcome a case of spiritual heart disease."

"Although we have the best churches humans can build, God remains conspicuously absent in many of them."

"They sometimes see individual or significant events as important, but they often fail to connect the dots of their life experiences."

I like that, connecting the dots of life experiences.

"Some of your great heart hungers may still be unsatisfied. God may be using these to create space for himself in your heart."

"Leaders delude themselves if they think victory comes without conflict."

"One mark of genuine spiritual greatness is compassion for one's tormentors."

"intense, divine, heart-sculpting activities." I just like the way that sounds.

"The conflict-allergic leader who shrinks from all conflict and gives into fear will fail to preside over an expansion of the kingdom."

Conflict-allergic. That's good.

And this one's my favorite...

"The process of sanitizing prayer cuts God out of the healing loop."

Oh man, that's good.

We often choose to censor our prayers. But God can handle emotional outbursts. So let those emotions out. I'm really learning what it means to express myself this year. Expression is a beautiful thing.

How do you choose to express yourself? Think about it. And then go do it.

And then we reached maximum capacity.

The end.

And oh yeah, stop judging those books by their covers. Seriously. Who told you that was ok?