Dawn Xiana Moon: Intelligent folk pop with influences from jazz and traditional Chinese music. From Chicago.

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Sunday, January 09, 2005

KC MO Part II: Flawless Beauty

(Read Part I here.)

I didn’t tell anyone, but for a couple of weeks before leaving for Kansas City I’d lost any real interest in going to Onething and was more excited about dancing with the lindy hoppers there and playing my first out of state show. I’m not an enthusiastic fan of large worship conferences; I’m wary of people being moved but not changed. But I signed up, curious about the International House of Prayer (IHOP) and Mike Bickle, having read some of his work, partially because my friend Tracy really wanted to go—plus the conference was free. Though my cynicism never entirely dissipated, God had a few surprises in store.

It’s rare for me to go to a Christian conference or retreat and end up spending hours in the Bible on my own; usually with everything happening I feel like I’ve already had a fair amount of time with God and when free time is scarce, I’ll spend it on people, music, or reading/writing instead. But during the week at Onething, I read four Old Testament books and countless passages. Granted, some of the readings were research, checking various speakers’ claims and ideas against the Word, but the majority was just for the love of it.

One of the founding principles of IHOP is embracing a metaphor scattered throughout the Bible, what they call the bridal paradigm: Christ as the groom and the church as his bride. And for the first time in my life, I resonated with Song of Songs as God’s words to us, to me: “You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.... You have ravished my heart, my treasure, my bride. I am overcome by one glance of your eyes.” The Creator of the Universe is overwhelmed by me, calls me beautiful, finds me flawless even in the midst of my numerous failures. He’s not looking down from heaven mostly angry or disappointed or saddened by the many ways I screw up—no, he’s entranced, fascinated, ravished. He doesn’t just love us because he’s supposed to, because he’s a God of love—he actually likes us, wants to spend every moment with us. If we could only grasp this, what would our lives look like? How many of my insecurities would fall away? There’s a verse in 1 John that says, “Perfect love drives out fear.” Read that again: Perfect love drives out fear. If I could only understand this love, how could I possibly be afraid of rejection, of vulnerability, of failure?

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