She stood in front of a crowded room of young women eager to hear her speak. Unbeknownst to the crowd, Jennie Allen was gripped with fear. All she could think of was how she was being perceived and the waves of criticism that would supposedly come following her talk.
Upon meeting Allen, 35, you’d never suspect she once grappled with deep-rooted insecurities. Gregarious and warm, Allen is expressively passionate about Jesus Christ and reaching the next generation. But for years her zeal was quenched by fear. That is until she prayed a simple prayer, one she documents in her book Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vcOO5kE2fU
“I realized that I had loved and craved the approval of people,” says Allen. “I’m tired of living for the invisible thoughts of others. I was free of something that had been consuming me.”
In Anything (Thomas Nelson, April 2012) Allen writes about bondage to self and stuff, and seeking safety, comfort and happiness in those things. She recounts how God challenged her to lose her life and surrender it to him.
“Anything is about living right now, surrendered,” says the Austin resident and mother of four. “We (my husband and I) were disillusioned by the things we were chasing. I was reading Katie Davis’s blog, and it floored me. I began to ask, what am I doing and why am I living for all of these people?” (Davis, you’ll recall, is a 22-year-old Christian—and transracial adoptive mother of 14 currently living in Uganda.)
One night Allen and her husband, Zac, began to pray. “God, we will do anything—anything,” slipped out of Zac’s mouth. Left were a tinge of fear and two lives now surrendered.
Surrender and abandonment of self have cropped up as themes in several Christian women’s titles over the past year. Jennifer Hatmaker’s book Seven addressed ridding oneself of greed and materialism. Ann Voskamp wrote of her quest to be thankful in all circumstances—even after the death of her 3-year-old sister—in her New York Times bestseller One Thousand Gifts. And then there’s Katie Davis’s radical move to Uganda and adoption of 14 girls, documented in Kisses from Katie.
That young Christian women are hungry for more of the Word was also apparent at the Gospel Coalition’s first women’s conference, featuring popular theologians and Bible teachers such as John Piper, Tim Keller, Paige Brown, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and Kathleen Nielson. Women attending commented on the richness of the messages and the depth of the expository preaching.
It’s this same desire for more of God that led the Allens to adopt Cooper, a toddler boy from Rwanda.
“This radical, abandoned life is new for me, and yet it seems to contain more of God and more freedom and more life than trying to hold on to my sane life and protecting my life and dreams ever did,” she said.
Allen has been leading women and Bible studies since she was 17. A graduate of Carson Newman College, she went on to receive her master’s in biblical studies from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2005. Her passion for discipleship led her to write her own Bible studies for the small group of ladies she led. After receiving a nudge and encouragement from her husband, Allen took her studies to a writer’s festival. In 2011 Thomas Nelson contracted her to do a series of projects.
“When I realized God was calling me to more, namely two books and Bible studies, it was scary because it was becoming a career,” she said.
Within a year Allen had completed two projects, written several articles, traveled to ministry events, and appeared in videos. But in April, the month her book launched, what seemed like a time for rejoicing began a new battle.
Allen began to struggle with she called “worse than depression: spiritual numbness.”
“By the end of everything, I just crashed into my bed. I was struck with fatigue and spiritual numbness—right as the book was coming out. I felt like I was so empty when everything should have been exciting,” she said.
“I knew that everything that was written was real, but in those moments, I had to hold onto the Word of God. I’m weak and I need Jesus,” she said.
“When you are in your bed watching five seasons straight of Mad Men, which I don’t recommend,” she says, “I had to at some point quit justifying sitting on my butt.”
She admits, “That’s where I am. Obedience starts with getting out of bed, falling on your face, and trusting that Jesus is who he says he is.
“My anything is running back to Jesus where nobody sees me,” she said.
Allen has published one DVD-based study, Stuck: The Place We Get Stuck and the God Who Sets Us Free (September 2011), and will release Chase: Chasing After the Heart of God later this year.
After last week’s fairly quiet episode, this week’s Locke-centric entry, “The Substitute” (watch it here), moved us closer to answers on some of the biggest questions of the series: why are these people on this crazy island? Do they have any choice in what happens to them, or is fate in control? What forces are driving the story, and who falls on the sides of good and evil?
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE LATEST EPISODE, DO NOT CONTINUE READING.
Of course, in typical Lost fashion, the answers raise even more questions as we attempt to understand what it means, exactly, that Jacob identified six of our castaways as candidates to succeed him as island protector, or that his intervention in their lives, according to Fake Locke, has created the illusion of free will while drawing them to the island. When Sawyer mentions that he’s never met Jacob, Fake Locke responds, “At some point in your life he came to you when you were vulnerable or miserable, he came to you, manipulated you, pulled your strings like you were a puppet and as a result the choices you thought you made were never really choices, he was pushing you, pushing you to the island.” But is he even telling the truth, or is he conning the con man?
In his conversation with Richard Alpert, Fake Locke began to sow seeds of doubt into Richard’s mind when he asked why he followed Jacob’s orders without understanding his purposes, assuring him that he never would have kept him in the dark. He played the serpent to Richard’s Eve in this dystopian Garden. While that comparison may not hold up particularly well for either Richard or Fake Locke, it does seem to suggest that we should trust whatever plans Jacob has put into motion, no matter how meddling or power-hungry Fake Locke may try to paint them.
As we considered competing definitions of good, as put forth by Jacob and Fake Locke, we also considered contrasting versions of the same man. The man of faith received a fitting eulogy from Ben: “John Locke was a believer … he was a man of faith. He was a much better man than I will ever be — and I’m very sorry that I murdered him.” The sideways timeline showed us the same man’s life devoid of the hope that characterized his island self. In this non-crash life, Locke dismisses the fortuitous offer of a spinal surgeon’s free consult while his fiancée, Helen, encourages him to consider that it might be something more. We are left to wonder which Locke is better off — the man who resigns himself to his limitations, or the man who dies thinking “I don’t understand”?
What did you think of this episode? Is Fake Locke telling the truth about Jacob’s plans, and is it a bad thing if he is? What are we to think of the two John Lockes?
