Who Are We, Anyway?

Someone sent me a mask for Christmas. It came from Italy, almost halfway around the world, and I keep looking at it. It wasn't until this morning that I started to understand why.

It started out on New Years Eve, and a talk about the lives we'd built for ourselves over these 50 or 60 years, and not our dissatisfaction with them, but our downright confusion. We've become, in great parts, what we've set out to be--capable, thoughtful, faithful in measures more than we'd ever expected--but now, well, now it all seems a bit silly and out of place.

Oh, we still mess up (and I did, spectacularly, later that same night) but that's not the problem.
We recognize our instances of falling short with ease. It's the instances of success that make us pause. Our successes haven't taken us where we know we have to go. In fact, they seem to take us farther from it.

That's where the mask comes in.
The mask reminds me that we are still trying to figure out who we were meant to be.
 You'd think that, by now, we'd have gotten farther in this basic truth, but well, we haven't. And this is why--

After spending our whole lives learning and building, it seems like our business now is to dismantle it--to take apart the entire construct we've worked so hard on, looking for that essence, that kernel of what's really important.

The mask doesn't represent something that's fake--it's the layers of our life. 

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It's the good things we've made day by day that, suddenly, we don't need any more. In fact, they've become hindrances. It's the taking charge, the steadfast patterns, the suddenly useless knowledge that's beginning to weigh us down rather than propel us through our days.

It's God saying, 'I've shown you what I can make of you, but I'm not done yet. Now I'm going to show you what I've put in you.'

He warned us about this, you know.
I will put my Spirit in you...--Ezekiel 36:27 

Somebody asked me on New Years Eve for one wise saying to share to take us into 2016 and I, clumsy and self-conscious, said that God wants to show us that He is in us. What I should have done is gotten out the mask, because that's the whole point.

God has made us wonderful, but what we've had to do to build our lives has covered it up. 

credit:holdinholden.com

Now, it's time to strip all that away. Now, He wants to help us uncover the kernel He's deposited, that Spirit He's incomprehensively given and nurtured. He's asking us to take off the outer shell we no longer need, to pare down to the simple, unguarded core.

It's taken Him all our lives to teach us to trust Him. 
Now, He wants to show us who we really are in Him.

So they asked him, "What are you? Are you Elijah?" And he said, "No, I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No." So they said to him, "Who are you so that we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?"  He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Make straight the way of the Lord.'"--John 1

The Creation Test

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OK--Here's another test. (If you missed the first one, click here)
This is the creation test, and again consists of only one simple question:
What was the first thing God created?

Are they running through your mind? The plants, the animals, the cosmos?
Maybe you are thinking this:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.--Genesis 1:1
How can anyone argue about that?

Well, not so fast.
Have you ever seen this?
The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old.--Proverbs 8:22

Oh really? And what was this that God made before he made the rest? Go back a few verses:
I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment--Proverbs 8:12

It's Wisdom. God made Wisdom before anything else.
Wisdom. God begat His own Consciousness and Word. He gave them His sound and utterance.*
His own Consciousness. God's awareness of everything.
How great a gift is this? Well, you answer that.
By Wisdom we hear God's voice.
By Wisdom we can know right and wrong.
By Wisdom we have the capacity to discover.
By Wisdom we recognize justice and freedom.

Without Wisdom, God could have made the whole world and we would be completely clueless about it. We would know no inspiration, no curiosity, no wonder. Without Wisdom, we would never come to realization about the greater meaning of anything.
Look at your pet. That is creation without Wisdom. Sweet, loveable, and clueless.

Wisdom had to come first because, through it, God made a way to know Him.
And how did we figure this out?
By using God's gift of Wisdom.
Thank you, Lord.

*Tertullian, (c. 200), Adversus Praxean, 6

God Has Free Will, Too

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God gave me free will--a very good thing--at least I think so.
Why? Why is free will a good thing? What does it let me do?
Well, free will allows me to choose without being forced. In essence, free will allows me to do exactly as I want to do. I like that.

Here's what free will sounds like:
"I want vanilla, not chocolate."
"I want to marry Bob, not Tom."
"I want to go to Tahiti, not Atlanta."
"I want to sleep late, not go to church."

See?
The goal of free will, from my point of view, is to figure out, then act on, what I really want. From God's point of view, however, free will is a bit different. God wants me to want what He wants.
I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.--John 15:5
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.--Ephesians 5:17
I am in my Father and you are in Me and I am in you.--John 14:20 

Until I do, however--until I want what God wants, He will not stop me from making my own choices and, in the meantime, I make some pretty crummy ones. And, while I'm making these crummy choices, God is what?  He's patient. He's long-suffering. Remember what its' like when our own kids insist on doing what we know will lead to a crash-and-burn? Like that. It happens to everybody.

In the process, though, I've spent a lot of time saying No to God. 
While I'm saying No, however, I forget that  He can say No to me, too. I don't like that very much.
When I say No to God, I expect Him to be OK with that. He gave me free will, right? Well, God has free will, too. That's why it's a relationship. God will love me, but He will do it the way He wants, not the way I want.*

He did it to Paul, right?
Three times I pleaded to take [the thorn in my flesh] away from me. But He replied, "My grace is sufficient for you."-2Corinthians 12:8-9
Translation: I am not going to love you that way. I am going to love you with myself instead, with my very own presence. You will keep your thorn, but you will come to know me intimately.*

Not a bad deal when you think of it. God told Paul No to something small, but Yes to something much bigger. It's like asking for a scooter and getting a Lamborghini instead.

God said No to Jesus in the garden, too. Jesus wished for the cup to pass from Him, that horrible cup of pain, but God said No. Instead, He perfected all mankind through that suffering and made it the source of salvation for everyone.

He does the same thing for us. If Mother does not get well, if we don't get the job, if the godly husband I want is still not showing up, God is saying No, but it's OK. God always has a Yes to go with it. Don't see God's Yes in your life? Look around for Him. His hand is out, full of blessing. If not satisfaction, then comfort. If not health, then holiness. We so rarely ask for the eternal gifts, and these are His best ones.

*Henry Cloud and Jim Townsend, Boundaries, 1992, Zondervan

Humpty and the King

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I keep trying to understand why some people believe and some do not. It has nothing, apparently, to do with intelligence, because lots of very smart people have no faith in God. It has nothing to do with exposure, because, in this country at least, an overwhelming majority of people have heard about creation and Christ. It has nothing to do with behavior, because many very nice folks refuse to consider faith in God as the only logical reason to behave decently.

So what is it? Why do some believe and some don't?

The simple answer is that some have heard the call of Christ and some have not, and that is true. God is clear about that.
I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion--Exodus 33:19
Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God--John 8:47

But even that understanding does not satisfy. I look at unbelievers and they seem so....well....happy. They do. Life is often easy for them. I hear sometimes about how unhappy life is without Christ, but the evidence often does not seem to bear that out. In fact, it looks just the opposite. Once belief does come, the believer is plagued by a stubborn, inconvenient truth by which an unbeliever is not troubled. 

The believer knows he is broken. 
Irretrievably, unrelentingly broken.
And there is nothing he can do about it.
He's like Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the kings men can't put Humpty back together again.

And, in case you haven't noticed, brokenness is not fun. It makes none of us happy. And yet, that's the first step on the road to faith. It's a step down, not up.
What gives?

I remember a few years ago, when our parish priest was baptizing several adults, he told them that they were mistaken if they thought that their newfound faith would make their life easier. "It will make your life harder." he told them, "Do it anyway." And he was right. Faith does make life harder. I no longer measure myself against other people to figure out how I'm doing. I have to measure my behavior and motives against a holy God. And I always, always come up short. The unbeliever just has to look around to see whether he's doing better than the next guy, and that's not too hard.

We've all seen them. The alcoholic who is absolutely convinced that he's in control of his habit. The mobster who has a good handle on his life by declaring that "it's only business." The serial monogamist (of either sex) who knows that her life is OK because she's 'not hurting anyone.' They are happy, satisfied, undisturbed. And sometimes, I am jealous of their comfort. I don't get to have that. 

Instead, I'm laying at the bottom of the wall in pieces, looking up at a God I just realized has given me the dubious privilege of seeing the true state of my life and thinking, "Gee...thanks a lot. I could have done without this, God." And I'm tempted to think that He's the one who pushed me over.

But He's not. He just helped me to see. And he follows that sight with an immediate solution. He extends his hand with a remedy, the same one Peter extended to the cripple in the name of Christ at the temple gate:
Rise up and walk.--Luke 5:23
The man had been a cripple his whole life. Sure, he knew that he wasn't like everybody else but, well, begging may not have made for a bad living. It didn't require much effort, and no one expected too much of him. In some ways, it made for a pretty comfortable life.

Then, one day, he discovers he's broken...and there was Jesus.
Imagine his surprise.

Humpty never did get put back together again, but we can be. In the instant we know the extent of our brokenness,we are reassembled not only as good as new, but better than new. The King Himself does what all His horses and all His men could not.  
See! I am doing a new thing--Isaiah 43:19
And behold! The new thing is me!

Taking off the Mask: Wearing Truth

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I'm a hypocrite.
I admit it. So are you.

This is why:
Every time I sin, I have lied about what I believe. I have lied to whoever has witnessed my sin but, worse, I have lied to myself.

Here's how it works: I say I want to do the right thing, that I don't want to sin. And then I do. How does that work? Is someone twisting my arm to take a third piece of cake? To snark at my husband? To spend time at work on the phone with friends? Really?
Even the writer of Hebrews knows:
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of death.--Hebrews 12:4

This is the truth--
I always do exactly what I want to do. 
Every time.
The devil never makes me do it. He can't. I have to cooperate. I have to agree. We all do.

Think about it. Imagine someone who is a compulsive thief. He says he loves God and wants to obey Him, but just can't seem to stop himself. We call this behavior an addiction and it probably is. Addiction is a real thing, but even an addict lies to himself and we often let him. Even given the physical pull of addiction, at some level the addict likes his behavior. He enjoys the thrill of cheating, the belonging of gossip, the comfort of the drug. They not only feel like they can't, but deep down do not want to give it up.

We choose our sin.

Here's a more honest approach. Just say it.
Adultery is exciting.
Gossip makes us feel important.
Food makes us happy.
Anger vindicates us.

Our faults and habitual sins are not mitigated in the least when we go to church on Sunday or read our Bible but don't change. Unaltered sinful behaviors do not characterize a Christian. They indicate a Pharisee.

There is a a relief, a kind of grace, in admitting who we really are. Try it sometime.
Substitute "I struggle with nagging, but can't seem to stop" with "I don't dare stop nagging him. Nothing will ever get done." Admit that we care less that nagging is wrong than about getting the garbage taken out.

God knows this is hard, but He wants us to examine our real motives:
I desire truth in the inner parts--Psalm 51:6

Before we can turn our true face to the world, we have to turn a true face toward God and toward ourselves.
What are we really afraid of? The Christian mask we are wearing will have to come off sooner or later. We might as well take it off now. The Christian truth lies underneath.

Linking up this week with http://christianmommyblogger.com/fellowship-fridays-22-link-parties-worth/

The Son of Man

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Jesus Christ. Son of God. Son of Man.

The Bible tells us that He is both these things and simply by the exalted nature of them, these statements carry a lot of weight. I want to understand them, and understand well.

The idea that Jesus is the Son of God seems the easier of the two. After all, the Father Himself declares a number of times that Jesus is His Beloved Son. And I know what a son is. I have two of them.  So, if God the Father has a Son, their relationship and shared common nature make sense. 

Son of Man, not so much. If Christ is the Son of God, how could He be the son of men as well? And why? And yet, in the Bible, He declares that He is. Son of Man is Jesus' name for Himself.

What do men say that I, Son of Man, am?--Matthew 16:13

Well, it turns out that I'm not the only one who wanted to understand this better. Iraneus, the bishop of Lyons from 177-200 AD, had quite a bit to say about it.*

First, he observed, Jesus passed through every stage of human life. As Adam was made from untilled virgin earth never knowing rain, so did Christ begin His human life in the womb of a virgin. That was the beginning. Afterwards, He grew through common years like any man--preborn, infant, juvenile, adult, and even corpse--so that no man can say he has been left behind in his peculiar state. Christ became fellow of us all. He did not live outside human frailty at any time in his earthly life. Instead, He sanctified all stages and states of life by sharing them.

Christ, as Son of Man, was like me, no matter who I am.

Second, by the very act of taking on flesh, by participating in incarnation, Christ reunited man to God. The fact of His humanity made Him mediator between God and Man. 

I think that this is kind of like forgiveness--it happens in stages. The first stage is that in which we forgive an unrepentant sinner to free our own spirit from bitterness and hatred, but in which the complete relationship is not yet restored. So did God come down to unrepentant, clueless man and present Himself, ready and waiting.  The second stage, in which our relationship with the sinner is restored through repentance, Christ lived out in His own suffering and death. That freed all penitents to walk through the now-torn veil directly back to the Father.

Christ, as Son of Man, led the way for all men.

Third, Christ overcame Satan as only a man could have done. From the very beginning of His ministry, He exposed Satan's rebellion when He said, 

It is written: Worship the Lord thy God and Him only shall you serve.--Luke 4:8

So man, through the Son of Man, nullifies the power of Satan that Adam admitted in Eden. By His own obedience and submission, Christ put Satan in his place.

Later, He goes even further by subjecting Himself to disgrace and physical suffering. Had He not done so, God would have asked men to endure the scourge and turning the other cheek, something He Himself had not endured, effectively elevating the servant above the master. This, He could not do.

And then, when He became the first man to die and rise again, He showed Himself to be the Author of Life, who goes before us all to show the way.

Christ as Son of Man shows me what He created man to be.

In the end, if Christ is not Son of Man, I have no way to understand either the nature of God nor the nature of Man. Only through Him can I understand what I am created to become. Only through His humanity do I understand my own. 

*Iraneus, Against Heresies, III

'Remember' is a Verb

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I forget stuff all the time--where I put my glasses, what I'm supposed to get at the store, the name of that great deli downtown. Remembering, for me, is an effort sometimes and I write down more than ever before just so it doesn't get lost, so I don't commit some embarrassing faux pas.

God, however, does not forget. Not in the same sense that I do, anyway. He doesn't remember the way I do, either.

For me, remembering is a mental exercise, something I do in my head. For God, however, remembering is an action verb. God doesn't have a brain, after all. He's a spiritual being and doesn't have...well...parts. He's one thing. He can't forget, so He doesn't have to remember.

But the Bible says He does.
I will remember my covenant...--Genesis 9:15

So, when God promises to remember, what exactly does He mean?
Let's see--
When God remembered Noah in Genesis 8:1, He sent a great wind to dry off the earth.
When God remembered Abraham in Genesis 19:29, He rescued Lot from Sodom.
When God remembered Rachel in Genesis 30:22, He opened her womb.
When God remembered the Israelites in Exodus 6:5-6, He brought them out of Egypt.

What, then, is remembering to God?
It's action.
When God remembers, He doesn't just slap His forehead saying, "Oh-that's where I left the Hebrews." When He remembers, He is acting. In every one of these examples, He is enacting rescue.
To God, remembering = doing something.

And the reverse is also true.
When God stops remembering, He does not forget in the same way we do. It's not only His memory that's affected. To God, not remembering means not acting.
And, for us, God's forgetting is good.
I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.--Isaiah 43:25

He remembers your sins no more.
This forgetting does not only describe an act of memory. It is God declining to act.

This is the Good News of Jesus and the cross.
Because of what Christ did on Calvary, God forgets. He will no longer mete out the punishment we earned for our sin. He no longer remembers. He chooses not to act.

Remembering is acting.
Forgetting is declining to act.

That's how God does it.
We can do it that way, too.

Saying Yes--The Only Job We Have

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OK, it's Lent, and I'm thinking a lot about sin and salvation. Not everybody's favorite subject, but sin is kind of like an untended infection--ignore it and it could kill you.
So, I'm thinking today--what is sin exactly and how does it fit into God's plan?

Sin was part of God's plan, after all. It had to be. Nothing happens without God's will or permission, right? So the same goes for sin.
But that doesn't mean that sin is a good thing. Quite the contrary, of course. When it comes to sin, God allowed, with intent, something not good. Of course, He knows how to bend it to good, and that's what I want to talk about today.  I have to understand sin to understand its danger. And it is dangerous. Like the infection, it could kill me.

So why do I sin? Hmmm. I like it. I do. For instance:
I gossip because it gives me a feeling of superiority.
I eat or drink or spend too much because it satisfies me and I don't have to ask God for whatever I've given myself.
I am selfish because keeping my stuff enhances my feeling of strength and independence.
I lie because it appears to make circumstances easier. It smoothes the rough edges.
I do not honor a holy rest because what I have to do is just too important.

In every instance, I commit these sins because I am trying not to need God. I am doing the one thing He forbids me--choosing myself over Him.

And that is all I have to do. Choose Him. Say Yes, Lord. Period.

God's already done everything else. 
Jesus wasn't saying anything new when He declared "It is finished" from the cross. It was always finished.
I am God; there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning...My counsel shall stand and I will do all My pleasure...I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.--Isaiah 46:9-11
Surely as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.--Isaiah 14:24

When God made us, sin came with the package. So did Christ and His redemption.
I know that sounds a little weird, but for us, all this happens in time. For Him, it was always there. And we can't change any of it. It's already done. Jesus already declared completion following the sixth day of Creation. We, and the world we live in, and every circumstance we encounter has always been finished.

There is only one thing I can do--admit it or not.

If I do admit it, I also admit God's sovereignty, His pefection, His love, and my own sin before Him. I acknowledge that He is God and I owe Him everything. In the process, I change little by little to become like Him. I worship Him for His perfection and His patience and His sharing even a little of Himself with me.. I dedicate myself to Him. I become holy.

Or I don't.

I can't have just a little holiness. I get it all or none.
Oh, I will still sin, but if I am admitting who God is, if I am saying 'Yes' to Him, I will get back on track. God planned for sin, remember. He allows us to be forgiven as long as we are loving Him the way He intended.

The one thing He does not tolerate, however, is for me to say 'No.'  
I can't say, 'No, thanks, God. I'll take whatever good you might toss my way, but I don't really need You. I can protect myself. I can make my own way.'
My 'No' is not only sin. My 'No' is the blasphemy of denial when it becomes my way of life. If I am to have a life with Christ, every sin (all of which tell God that He does not, after all, have authority over my life) has to be repented. If I do not repent of sin, it takes me only one place--down the wide road of death. Without repentance, we do not let God save us.

It's all one thing.
Either I say 'Yes and Amen--You are God. I sin. I owe You everything. I love You. I trust You. I serve You.' Or I give Him nothing. 'I don't need You. I'm sufficient to myself. You might as well not exist for all the difference You make.'

A heart for God can lapse into sin and be restored to Him--David proved that.
But a heart that doesn't need Him is all on its own in a very dark world.

Hi there--I'm a Sinner

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Sackcloth and ashes. That's how the ancients did it.
When they were convicted of their sin, they tore their clothes, put on hard, scratchy garments,  poured ashes on themselves, then sat in a public place so everyone could see. We don't do that.

So, what can we do? After all, making a public declaration of sin cements our understanding of our situation before God in a way no private confession would ever do. So what, in the context of our own culture, could we do?

How about this:
As a rule, we're really good at introducing ourselves to people. What about if, the next time we shook hands with someone in greeting, we just said, "Hi, I'm JoAnne, and I'm a sinner."?

They do it at AA meetings all the time, don't they? It's part of their renewal, their repentance, if you will. They declare that they are alcoholics and so, begin their journey back from that pit. It should work for us, too, shouldn't it?

Say we did that.
What would a statement like that say, to ourselves and the people we meet?

First, God is real, and He has authority over my life, authority above both my own reluctance to admit it and any human's opinion of me.
If we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves--1John 1:8
Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight...Psalm 51:4


Second, this same God created me because He loves me. If God is real, and instituted the conditions under which we are to live with Him--the same ones I have broken--He did so because they are a natural outflow of Himself. Whatever God commands me to be, He already is.
Be ye holy because I am holy.--Leviticus 20:7

Third, I am not perfectly holy, but God can save me. If I admit freely my sin, and acknowledge a God both all-powerful and loving, He has to have made a way for me. He is not content to leave me in the desolation to which admission of sin inevitably leads.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.--1John 1:9

In the end, there is no gospel without sin. We wouldn't need it. God, already full and glorious in our sight, would be good news enough. As it is, though, things didn't work out like that. And what we live, or have the opportunity to live, is not Plan B. God only makes and keeps Plan A. He gets to do that, you know. Perfectly, like He does everything else.

He made us, and when He did, He knew we weren't God, like Himself. We never could be. Sin, and all its anguish, has to be part of God's plan. It's how we know His holiness, how we know how much all this cost Him, how much He loves us. We know instinctively that we cannot understand good in the absence of evil, happiness without unhappiness. Well, then, how could we know everything we know about God without seeing even a glimpse of life without Him? I don't think I could.

So, yes. I'm a sinner. And while I'm not proud of it, I understand the role my sin plays in God's plan. I need it. I need its anguish, its shame, its desolation. Then I know how much I need my God.

Hi. I'm JoAnne.....and I'm a sinner.

God Never Says "Oops"

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Whenever something bad happens to me, my first reaction is to think that I don't belong in my situation. Surely, there's been some kind of mistake.
My son shouldn't be sick. I shouldn't have constant conflict with my boss. I'm not supposed to have broken my mother's prized china. My husband wasn't supposed to be downsized out of a job. Our car shouldn't have broken down. I wasn't supposed to lose my wallet. I wasn't intended to burn the turkey.
Wrong.
Wherever I am, I belong there.

No, no, you might say. The bad things that happen are the result of evil in the world. God doesn't want bad things to happen to you. He loves you. He wants you to be happy.

Hmm.
Is God really God, then?
Is He all powerful, all knowing? Does anything take Him by surprise? Is He unable to stop evil?
Um. I don't think so.

Regardless of what I want to believe about my situation, I am in it for one of only two reasons:
Either God has willed it, or He has allowed it.
Period.
If I do not admit this, then God becomes subservient to my will, to the devil, to chance, or to something else. And He can't. If He does, He is not God.
Whatever I or someone else has done to cause my present circumstances, God did not stop them. They happened. They may not look good, but my loving, perfect God has permitted them.
And this is where I get stuck.
Either God is perfect or He's not.
Either He can do anything, or He can't.

God is not selectively perfect. He is not selectively knowing. He is not selectively loving.
God is these things all the time.
He does not make me do stuff, but He does work all things together for good. He can turn my bad decisions, eventually, into good. He can turn evil inside out. He does it all the time.
He can do this because He does not live in moments of time. We do.
I see only this moment--this nasty tangle, this unfair circumstance.
God, however, sees the end of all things. He knows how a given set of circumstances works out not only for me, but for everybody everywhere. He has a plan and I can't, no matter how I mess stuff up, change it.

In fact, I am part of it:
From one man He made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him, and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, for He is not far from each one of us.--Acts 17:26-27

That's His plan.
For us to seek Him and find Him.
And, if I have to lose my wallet in the meantime, it's not God saying "Oops", it's Him working His plan.
I can live with that.

Fixing My Ouchies

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I have an infection.
How do I know? Because it hurts.
It's red and icky and swollen. Just looking, anyone can tell that something is definitely wrong.
I've tried to clean it out and de-infect it, but nothing's worked so today, I'm going to the doctor. I'm sure the doc will know what to do and afterwards, it will stop hurting.
Simple.

Nobody likes hurt.
Nobody likes it, but nobody escapes it. We all get hurt.
And some of our biggest wounds are the ones that don't show.
It's harder to show a doctor an infected heart than an infected finger. But it hurts just as much, maybe more. And just as when I don't get my infected finger cleaned out and healed, my emotional infection left untended will spread and get worse. Much worse.

We all know what physical infections look like when they're not tended. Nasty. But what do emotional hurts look like when neglected? They have repercussions, too. Like anger, and bitterness, and isolation.
OK--so when we go to a doctor, they ask us for symptoms of our physical malady. How about our other hurts? How about those symptoms? 
Who or what makes me consistently mad?
Or, what inexplicable outburst took me and everyone around me by surprise?
Who just always irritates me?
What kind of book or movie or remark always puts me in a bad mood?
Why do I pick on a particular person or behavior or habit?
When did I stop going to church?
Or hanging out with friends?
What makes me just want to hole up at home and avoid everyone?
What place or person or subject do I want to avoid no matter what?

I know that, if I don't get my finger healed up, the affected area will get bigger and eventually, I'll either get blood poisoning and die, or I'll catch it in time and it'll heal, but will leave a scar. Well, I have non-physical scars, too. And they are not without consequences.

Ironically, a physical scar won't hurt like the wound did. It might twinge a little once in awhile, but the constant, throbbing pain is gone. Someone can touch it, and I don't jump anymore. I know that a doc can probably help me with my physical hurt. But I have to get help with my other hurts, too. And just like my physical ones, I have to admit I hurt in the first place.

There's no shame in hurting. Jesus did, too.
During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death...--Hebrews 5:7a

Loud cries and tears. Jesus was not shy about telling God about His hurts. And what did God do?
...and He was heard because of His reverent submission.--Hebrews :7b

Jesus humbled Himself to admit there was something wrong and then accepted God's healing when He did. I have to do the same thing.
God wants to do for me exactly what I want the doc to do for my infected finger:
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.--Psalm 147:3

But I have to admit that I need it. I have to look at the warning signs--the pain, the tenderness, the inability to engage in normal activities, and realize that I need to let God bind my wounds. I need to let the scar form if it must, and wear it as a sign that I've come through safe, after all.
We're pretty good at saying that God is the Great Physician. Now we have to act like it.

Not Drowning in the Meaningless

photo: www.bronzemagonline.com

Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!--Ecclesiastes 1:1

Poor Solomon.
I always felt kind of sorry for him, but not so much anymore.
Actually, I've come to understand that he was right, but not in a bad way.
Everything IS meaningless, and that knowledge drives us to find a reason for living. This is a good thing. Understanding that most of what we do and accomplish doesn't last drives us to search for meaning, for a reason to take the next breath.
And that's where Solomon got into trouble.

His dad, David, also thought life was meaningless. He did.
David, like Solomon, knew he was a sinner. He was drowning in his sins, in fact. Like Solomon, he knew that after he'd messed up big time, his good intentions had failed. He'd done very little right. He'd tried, but was not a worthy king, a good friend, or a successful husband and father. Like Solomon, he'd messed it all up.
But unlike Solomon, he didn't sink into melancholy over it.
Unlike Solomon, he didn't lose his reason for living.

Why? In spite of all the wrong turns, God was not enough for Solomon.
But God was more than enough for David.

How can we tell? Look at the symptoms.
Frustration = lost reason
Fear = lost reason
Depression = lost reason
Loneliness = lost reason

Solomon had them all. David did not.
David had repentance and after repentance, David had God.
I must find God, too, if I am to find the source of a balance mind and heart and the source of all health. I must always know the only solid reason for my life. 

I will never leave you nor forsake you.--Deuteronomy 31:8

God will take me beyond this life into eternity. He endures.
It's OK if everything is meaningless. I have God.

My Soul Magnifies the Lord

Source: www.priestsforlife.org

Mary.
She didn't expect to end up sixteen, unmarried, and pregnant.
But she was.

Mary may have been blessed among women, but that blessing did not come with ease or confidence in her circumstances.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, turned out the way she imagined it would. 
She did not end up a common Nazareth housewife.
She did not end up safe all her years in a home that her industrious carpenter husband built for her.
She did not end up safe in her own bed surrounded by her mother and other women when her baby came.
She did not end up with a lap full of frolicking, carefree children who, in their turn, would bring her sweet smelling grandchildren.
Her firstborn son did not outlive her--at least not the way she thought they would.

But what did she have to say about it?
My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.--Luke 1:46-7
In other words,
Thank you, God, for this confusion.
Thank you for this embarrassment.
Thank you for all the derision and doubt.
Thank you, too, for all the eventual pain.

In other words, Mary knew.
She thanked God for the life He'd ordained for her, whatever it included.
And why? Because in it, she knew she would find Him.
Not just the baby she would someday hold in her arms.
Not just the sweet child.
Not just the man who became her Lord.
But all of it.
God the Father who made and planned for her.
God the Spirit who spoke to her.
God the Son who grew in her, was born from her, and saved her.

Mary rejoiced in God. All the time.
She saw Him in every work, every word.
She didn't have to understand.
She trusted.

That is why we hail her, as did the angel, and acknowledge that she is full of grace.
Grace--where God meets His creation, and where our rejoicing proves we see Him there.

Putting Pain in its Place

Sam and Anne

I like to listen to first-time moms when they talk about the pain of childbirth. Really. There is a kind of community in this, something we all share and, as for every intense life experience, we all learn something from it. Some women bear their pain patiently, some resentfully, but like me, most of us try to forget it as soon as possible and, in the wake of the joy that usually follows, we can.

Not my friend Sam, though.

Now, Sam loves her daughter as much as any other new mother. She bubbles with the joy of her. She hasn't however, sidelined the memory of pain in getting there. Instead, Sam continues to stare her pain in the face, to call it by its nasty name, and commands it to its appropriate place in her life. Sam refuses to let her pain pretend to be anything other than what it is--hard, unpleasant, and temporary. 

Sure, she remembers that her labor hurt a lot, but also, defiantly, that it did not hurt forever. The pain never mastered her because she knew it had a purpose and when its purpose was fulfilled, it would end. In doing this, she got to keep the memory of the pain and the lasting gift it left her. Today, she can look at her daughter and say, 'You cost me a great deal, but you were worth it.'

In doing this, I think, she has discovered pain's purpose. What, after all, does pain bring? If we apply it correctly, it brings more than discomfort. Pain, if we let it, can bring sure knowledge that we can endure it and understanding that some things bring a hard cost. It can also bring vision of and hope for a future of health and wholeness.

Christ knew this, too--hence, the cross. He endured pain because He had a job to do that overshadowed it. His pain took a back seat to His purpose. He knew that the effects of His purpose would long outlast His pain. It happens the same for us. When God allows us pain, we can, if we choose it, come to know both the cost and the value of its greater purpose. By this knowledge, both the pain and the gift of it, we can join with Christ.

For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.--Hebrews 12:2

Swatting the Gnats

Photo: mudpreacher.org

We all stumble in many ways...--James 3:2
That's for sure.

Temptations surround us all. And some of them are pretty obvious. Ten Commandment stuff.
Lying, cheating, stealing, wanting what is not ours, hating....we know them, and we know they end in sin.
But reading and studying the Bible?
Stumbling over the Word of God?
Are you kidding?

No, actually.
Even deep, careful study of the Bible has its snares.
We miss the mark when we revere the words more than their Author.
You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.--Matthew 23:24

We pick, and poke, memorize and philosophize, the words themselves. But where is God in all of that?
The Lord says, These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.--Isaiah 29:13

There is a heart to the Word of God, a heart we must wear before one memorized verse will have any effect at all.
God gave us His Word not to first to memorize it or pick it apart in study, but so that we can know, believe, and follow Him.
We have to know God, not just His Words.
Gnats, after all, hover because something attractive has called them. They do not bring anything of value at all.
The words of the Word of God are small, too, and serve as indicators, as warnings, as signs, of a much greater Presence.
The power does not belong to them, but they point to it. 
Look beyond them, or they will trip you up.

Waiting for Rescue

Pic: piscesbabe.wordpress.com

This is you and me.
A princess safe in her castle, waiting for rescue.
We believe God will save us. But what kind of God do we wait for?

God drowns men.
He sends plagues.
He strikes men dead.
He opens the earth and burns them alive.
He exterminates whole families.
And all of these He does to Israel, who is His chosen,  just like us.

Does that make sense?
The Israelites thought so. This is what they said about their God:
The God of old is a refuge, a support in the arms of the Everlasting. Israel abides securely.--Deuteronomy 33:27-28

A refuge? Really? He sounds dangerously judgemental, rashly cruel. How does that work?
It works because He is God.
Don't expect to understand Him. By definition we can't, or He wouldn't be God.
Don't bother to second guess Him. He knows what we don't.
He only wants one thing from us:
This is the work of God: that you believe in Him whom He has sent.--John 6:28-29

Believe in the face of the unbelievable.
Believe when He makes me wait.
Believe that the God who struck down Saul is the same God who raised Lazarus.
No contradiction. No empty mercy. No megalomaniac cruelty.
He will not always do what we expect.
And because He does not, He remains God.

The Witness Between Us

Photo:familymatters.net

Why are Christians always arguing among themselves?
It's almost never necessary.
Really.
But we are so sure we are right and our brothers are wrong. 
Bah.

We should have learned long ago that we don't always see things clearly.
Way back when the Israelites first divided up the promised land, and settled on both sides of the Jordan river, they did  the same thing. The people of Reuben, Gad, and half of the people of Manasseh lived separated from the others, so they built an altar there, a copy of the tabernacle where the rest of their people worshiped, so that they would not forget God's faithfulness even though they lived separately.

And what did their brothers in faith say? Did they slap them on the back and say "Good job. So happy for your faithfulness!"  No, of course they didn't.
They said:
How could you break faith with the God of Israel? How could you turn away from the Lord and build yourselves and altar against Him now?--Joshua 22:16

They didn't get it at all.
So the Reubenites and Gadites set them straight:
The Mighty One! God! The Lord! He knows! ...It is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow that we will worship the Lord...--Joshua 22: 22,27

A witness between us and you.
To unite, not separate them.

More often than not, the God we worship is the same God.
Our sects and denominations are not supposed to separate us. They are incidents of upbringing and location. They are different flavors of the same Living Bread.

Some people like statues and stained glass, some a bare cross.
Some prefer loud music, some stately, some none at all.
Some dunk, some sprinkle.
It doesn't have to matter.

Though separated by differences that sometimes seem as wide as the Jordan, we need not destroy one another.
I don't always agree with my husband, but we almost always present a united front to the world.
Why can't Christians do the same?
Stop nit-picking your brother and put your arms around him.
There is one body and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all--Ephesians 4:4-5

Do you see it differently?
Do our denominational differences really matter all that much?

What BFF Really Means

Photo:www.uber-facts.com

I always thought that the epitome of human relationships was love.
God tells me to love and most of the time, I like doing it.
I love my husband and my children and my friends in His name.
But He also tells me to love my neighbor, who I don't always like.
Even worse, He tells me to love my enemy, who I absolutely don't like.
Now that I think about it, sometimes I want to love and sometimes I don't.
But I have to. Whether I like it or not.
And God has to love us. Loving is who He is. He can't not do it.

But that is not true of friendship.
We get to choose our friends.
And so does God.
I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father, I made known to you.--John 15:15.

Friendship is a privilege, not a command.
As we believe in and worship God, He calls us friends.
 This is not a slap-on-the-back buddy relationship, but a deep heart caring that shares and laughs and cries together. It is a relationship born of basic likenesses, deeper even than love. 

Friendship is more exclusive, reserved only for the closest of those God must love.
Love comes from God to all, but friendship, well....that is a finer thing.
BFF. Yes, I'll take that.
Thank you, Lord.

You've GOT to be Kidding

Photo:howtomakeyourmanperfect.wordpress.com

Teenagers.
Don't you hate it when they pout?
After all, what does pouting really say?
"You've got to be kidding."
"This isn't even close to good enough."
"What about ME?"

Teenagers. Go figure.
They are world class pouters.
And I, of course, being older and wiser, am not.

And, then I got out of bed.
"Oh, man...the cat threw up again."
"Who left their wet towels on the floor?"
"Turn on the air, will you? It's really hot out there."
"I don't want cereal for breakfast. Can't we have french toast?"

Complaints. Whines. And yes, pouting.
Nothing is good enough.
And, just like a pouting teenager insults what I have given her, I insult what God has given me.
Yes, the cat threw up, but she also calms and cuddles.
Yes, someone left wet towels on the floor, but the floor is tiled and nothing is harmed.
Yes, it's 90 degrees today, but it's not 30 below and it's not snowing again.
Yes, cereal isn't the most exciting breakfast, but it's easy and nutritious and doesn't burden anyone.

Turn back, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been good to you; He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 116:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God.--Ephesians 2:9

What God gives me is GOOD--not because it makes me happy, but because it comes from Him.
Thinking it is anything else simply becomes pouting.

The Fool Who Follows Him...

Take a close look. I thought this was clever at first. The Last Supper, but rather than Christ and His disciples, well-known scientists-- Galileo Galilei, Marie Curie, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin.

Harmless.  Even funny. But then I saw.

Not the heresy of it, although there is that component.  
It's the danger of it. Not because it's a joke, but because it isn't.

My former amusement dies to a choke, a strangle. I can't laugh at this because I live with it every day, as does every single smart person God made.
Suddenly, I get scared. Really scared.

This is the problem:
Smart people get used to being right.
They do. 
They get used to it because they often are, or sound like it. They know the right arguments, the pertinent facts, the scientific proofs. Most of them don't mean to lie or to deceive. Smart people are sincerely trying to help others understand. They are teachers, doctors, researchers, philosophers, scientists....and pastors. They are the best of us, aren't they? We go to them when we want to learn, want to improve, want to get well. 

But they have a problem. Us.
Because we believe smart people so completely, we have given them permission to believe themselves. 
We have given them license to ignore their own capacity for self-deception.
We ignore, and let thus let them ignore, their own humanity.

Oh sure, we all say no one is perfect, that we're all only human, and screw up, but then don't universally apply what we acknowledge to be universal frailty.
We permit some people to be more perfect than others.
We permit some people to be like God.

And that is what this picture is really about. 

Look again. 
Each of these men and women used their intelligence to figure out something important, and I am grateful for that. 
But some one of them also believed, and seemed to have convinced some of us, that their ability to figure stuff out makes them so special as to discount their own vast capacity for being wrong.
And this makes the smartest of us also the most dangerous. 
Listen to them, but don't trust them.

It is easy to deceive a really smart person when the deception involves their own perfection. 
They will believe in their own rightness almost every time.
After all, they're smart, aren't they?

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.--Proverbs 14:8