My Real True Love

photo: inbetweendays.me

This is the irony of age--that I have spent  a whole lifetime caring for and satisfying a body that slowly falls apart. 
And I can't do a thing about it.

Let's face it.
I love myself. More than I love anyone else and more than anyone loves me.
I am my own best friend.
But my affection is misplaced. I am also my own betrayer.

My hands hold tight to what does not last.
The man who loves his life will lose it...--John 12:25
My head trusts my own reason above all others.
For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight.--1Corinthians 3:19
My heart leads me to destruction.
The heart is deceitful above all things.--Jeremiah 17:9

So what do I do with this body, this life--or what is left of it?
How do I focus on what does not crumble to dust?
How do I live in blood and bone and skin, emotion and thought, but disdain its rule over me?

There is only one way I know--
I must live not to find satisfaction in indulgence, but joy in denial.
I cannot become like Christ and, at the same time, pamper my flesh. I have to go past it, through it.
This is life's purpose, its real journey.
If I can do this, then I will still die, but I will not die with my body. I will live with my Lord.

Where are You?

Photo: aprofitableword.blogspot.com

I'm wondering--
Who prayed the first prayer?

Simply defined, prayer is conversation with God.
But something else may be implied here, I'm thinking.
After all, Adam and Eve kept company with God in Eden, and that company was, presumably, easy and companionable.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.--Genesis 3:8

It sounds an awful lot like Adam and Eve often walked with Him, that they conversed with God, who showed them the world He'd created for them. Maybe they discussed heaven. Maybe they talked about what each fruit tasted like. Maybe they tossed around names for the animals.
But those conversations weren't prayer, were they?
I'm thinking not.

Prayer implies separation, a conversation held with effort across a chasm. 
Prayer started after God's question,
Where are you?--Genesis 3:9

They always knew how to find one another before that. Adam, Eve, and God, walked easily together before, but this time,
...they hid from the Lord among the trees in the garden.--Genesis 3:8

And God said to them what He is still saying to us--"Where are you?"
We are still hiding, still in the process of finding and being found.
That's where prayer begins, I'm thinking.

That's why it's so hard to pray, so slippery.
God is out there somewhere, and we hear Him sometimes, hear His sweet invitation in the cool of the day, but can't quite get there.
Maybe we're still afraid.
Maybe we're unsure.
Maybe we're still so mortified by our sins.

It doesn't matter.
Prayer is our connection to God for now, but not forever.
Some day, we will see Him face to face, clean and easy again.

Those will not be times for prayers, for not-quite-connected communication.
Those times will bring the same sweet fellowship Adam and Eve once knew--up close and personal.
That is God's biggest promise--Himself.
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty...--Isaiah 33:17

How to Hate the Sin

Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk

We are supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner. 
We hear it all the time, but the whole idea produces more blank looks and shaking heads than almost any other. How in the world are we supposed to do that?
 Well, like any other biblical principal, maybe it's best to start with ourselves.

I sin.
So do you.
But do I hate my own sin? 
No.
And how do I know this?
Jesus tells me:
If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off.--Matthew 18:8

Did He really mean this? 
Well, He did, or He wouldn't have said it.
He probably meant it as a metaphor, of course, but the example serves to illustrate the force with which we are to approach sin. We are to hate it enough to cut off our own hand to get rid of it.

Jesus says to "take up your cross" (Luke 9:23) and "die every day" (1 Corinthians 15:31).
He leaves no room for excuses, no safe harbor while sin still reigns in us.
This is what He does say:
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.--Hebrews 12:4
This is how much we are to hate sin.

Does this sound cruel?
It is not cruel to insist that we put to death strong, sinful desires.
It is not cruel to deny that it's OK for either ourselves or anyone else to give in to what is clearly forbidden.
We are to love both ourselves and others with self-denial.

Examine your own strong desires.
Do you indulge, rather than fight them because it's just so darn hard and you know that God, in the end, will forgive you?
I do.

The hand I must cut off is the hand of strong, habitual, sinful desire.
And it will hurt. A lot. A real lot. I will scream from it. I will not be able to envision what is on the other side, who I will be without it, how I will live, what I will do without the emotional crutch.
But, if I believe that heaven, and freedom, await, I must whack away, doing whatever it takes.
And then, pointing with my own bloody stump rather than a filthy, still-intact, accusing finger, I can learn to truly hate the sin and love the sinner because I have done so with myself.

Broken by Myself

photo: www.ido-doi.com

I know that Christ died for me, but I don't believe it. Not really.

If Christ had to do that--die--really die--to fix me, then there must be something drastically wrong with who I am.
And He died, all right. I believe that. But because of me? Really?

The Bible, after all, says that I am made in the image of God, right? How messed up, then, can I be?
Enough, apparently.

This is hard to understand. But until I do understand, really understand, this miserable necessity of Christ having to die because I am so broken, I can't understand anything else--not about God, not about me. So long as I hold onto even the smallest inkling that I might be OK just as I am, I cannot know God.

I don't like this idea. Not even a little.

I am good, and patient, and kind and all the rest. Most of the time. I am. I sometimes even look in the mirror and think, 'Hey, you're OK, girl.' But inevitably, just about then, I crash and burn. Anger, deception, and selfishness crowd out all the good stuff. Again.

And I see Him there--Jesus--hanging, bleeding, dying--saying nothing, saying everything.

Is He accusing me? No. But neither does he shrink from the truth like I do. He wears the truth.  He carries it, lays down on it, and dies on it.

I am not OK. Not alone. Not without Him. Not ever.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole.--Isaiah 53:5
You were bought with a price--1 Corinthians 6:20

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

Living in Debt

photo: www.nerdwallet.com

Bills. I don't like them. You probably don't either. And I have too many.
House. Car. Heat. Lights. Food. Clothes. School. And on and on.
I owe so much, and those are just the practical debts--the ones I can pay with money.
I have others, too.

I also have debts I can't pay. These are the hardest ones to live with.
I owe my parents, who gave without expectation for my nurture and training.
I owe soldiers, who gave their lives for my freedom.
I owe teachers, who gave more than anyone asked for my education.
I owe my family, who suffered my sins and returned forgiveness.

I can never pay them back, any of them.
Worse yet, I take them for granted.
I've lived so long in the luxury of what they gave that I no longer notice it's even there.

'Thank you' is not enough. Ever.
But what else is there?

And then there's God.
What does God want for all He gives?
For life. A world to live it in. Salvation and the promise of heaven.
How can I pay Him back?

I can't.
Not God. Not my parents, my family, not anyone who sacrificed for me.
I will owe them forever.

So if I can't pay them back, what, then, do I do?
What do those I to whom I owe so much want from me if it is not recompense?
I know what God wants because He says so:
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8

That's what God wants. Just action. Merciful love. A humble walk toward Him.
In one word, God wants appreciation.
And I imagine they all do.
They don't want repayment. They want love.

I will always be in debt.
Now, if I can only love...

Return to Me

pic: soulgarden.me

God made man.
He made us good--very good.
God made us to know Him, to share with Him, to walk with Him on a common ground.
But we don't.
After the catastrophe in Eden, a basic flaw keeps us apart.
He is perfect. We are not.

God knows this, of course, so He set out to fix the situation.
Come home, He says. 

Return to me, declares the Lord Almighty, and I will return to you.--Zechariah 1:3

Did you hear that?
Come to me. Return to me.
He wants to have us back, to remake us into the very good human beings He made originally.
But He will not change Himself to do it.
He will not become like us.
We have to become like Him.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the LORD, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the LORD, the Spirit.--2Corinthians 3:18

Our way back to God is laid, and it is through the cross.
Jesus opened the door, but we have to walk through it, and keep on walking.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.--John 8:12

The light of life...what God is, and what He wants us to be again.
The seed is within each of us still. God knows it, and wants us to know, too.
He spoke His own identity over us in creation:
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness--Genesis 1:26

What He spoke in an instant, we will spend our lifetime answering.