I've had a couple conversations recently that really got me thinking again about the issue of how we relate to each other within the body of Christ (i.e. the church). Long story short, I ended up expressing a lot of my thoughts about it in a poem, so I'll start with that:
Euphemistic Eucharist
Howya doin’? What’s up?
Pretty good, not too much,
life goes on, praise the Lord,
the usual and such--
By pretty good I mean
my family’s a mess--
we fight, except not here:
in this house we just bless.
I’m saying in not much
my schedule is insane:
it’s filled with noise and stress
it hardly can contain--
Life just keeps on going,
and so I don’t have time
to let you see beneath
charade and pantomime.
To praise the Lord I smile
and just sing happy songs;
pain stays behind the mask
where it, of course, belongs--
The usual just means
I’d tell you I’m depressed
were I allowed to break
facades so nicely dressed
And such and such and on--
a thousand pointless things
I’d rather say than tell
you anything that stings.
Safe. But are we happy?
We smile; are we alive?
The one place where it seems
reality should thrive,
instead we hide away;
we put our pride above
our pain--how can we throw
our masks aside and love?
Because we need help and we need
to be saved and all of us are
pretty much the same kinds
of messed up so why not just be real?
Can you see here what I’m driving toward?
Maybe then we could really praise the Lord.
So, I realize that my poem is a bit caustic. I'm just trying to honestly address a real issue, though, and the fact that it keeps on coming up among people I talk to lets me know I'm not the only one who feels it. The issue, as you can probably guess from the poem, is that church (not just mine, or anyone else's specifically, but church in general-- the conversations I mentioned at the beginning were with people from three different ones) has a tendency to become a place of fakeness where people don't feel like they can come with their real problems, instead of what it should be: the place where they could safely be honest and receive healing.
3 questions come to my mind: why does this happen, why is it so bad, and what can we do about it?
Let's break my OCD tendencies toward order and symmetry and start right in the middle with the second question. I don't want to belabor the point that the phenomenon I'm talking about is bad news, but I want to start with what I see as the basic reasons why it is so harmful.
The first is that everyone has problems, and problems don't just go away. Of course, drawing near to God is helpful in dealing with them. God can supernaturally solve them whenever he wants to. The problem comes when churches start teaching (or just believing, consciously or subconsciously), that this supernatural encounter with the healing Lord is only a one-on-one deal. Now, I know that God has healed me at times without any help from anyone else--he's just that good. However, the general model that he has laid out for us is something totally different.
"And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:15-16). This is God's model for healing. We get other believers involved, and they pray for us so that we will be healed. Catch that? James is letting us know that if we won't share our brokenness, both spiritual and physical, we won't access all the healing that we could because it comes through receiving prayer from each other! So that's one reason why it's a crisis that we don't feel like we can be real in church-- where else will we find the righteous men who can pray powerful and effective prayers for our healing?
Another reason is that everyone has problems, and everyone knows this is true. Even (or especially?) people who aren't Christians yet. We might feel like being real with the stuff of our lives will scare unbelievers away, but I propose that the fakeness we choose instead is infinitely more frightening. Everyone knows that people have problems. Everyone knows that they themselves have problems! So if you walk into a group of people where no one seems to have any, what do you think? You think, I'll never fit in with these people. So another reason this fear of dealing with real issues in church is a problem is because it is actually driving away the broken people who desperately need to receive healing by being prayed for (and who God wants to make into the powerful and effective prayers who will then help restore others!).
Finally, and potentially most seriously, being fake in church will hinder our worship. We might think we can sneak in and deal with our problems alone with God and have ourselves fixed by the time we have to talk to anyone. The problem there is that God is looking for worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). If we won't be real with God and with our family, we can't worship him in the way he desires. This is serious stuff, and if you don't think so just read in Exodus and Leviticus about people who tried to worship God in unauthorized ways. If we want his healing presence to be with us, we have to be willing to worship in the spiritual integrity God is seeking. Otherwise, our thanksgiving (Greek: Eucharist) will amount to little more than empty words we use to avoid saying what we really mean.
So, why does it happen that we feel like all we can be at church is just fine and peachy-keen, etc.?
I think it probably comes down to fear, mostly. Just because we all have problems and we know it doesn't mean we necessarily feel comfortable sharing them with people! If our fear of being judged for the things that are still messed up about us trumps our desire to be healed from those things, we won't share, plain and simple. If we have a history of being judged, that makes things worse of course, as does seeing other people be judged in places (like church) where they should be welcomed instead. Put all those things together, and fear wins out a lot of times.
Also, I think there's a misunderstanding in the church of what the Bible really teaches about joy. When it says to be joyful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16), is that the same as being happy all the time? If the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), and a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), are we weak Christians who don't have the Holy Spirit if we go through struggles and trials?
All of the answers are no, in case you're wondering. No one is "too blessed to be stressed" either (although some might be in too much denial not to smile). Joy is not the same thing as happiness, and godly joy is just as compatible with sorrow as with happiness. Jesus himself wept (John 11:35), but he was given the oil of joy more than all his companions (Psalm 45:7). He also got so stressed that he sweated blood (Luke 22:44). So godly joy must be something different than unceasing happiness. What if, instead, it's the ongoing security of knowing that eventually everything will work out for your good because it's all in the control of the all-powerful God who loves you? Then you can feel the pain of loss and brokenness without losing hope, and when you are happy you can be happy for the right reasons. That's the joy that will bring you strength.
One further note on why the problem of disingenuousness happens at church: it kind of gets to be a vicious cycle. No one wants to be the first person to do anything, so if no one is talking about any real stuff, it's that much harder for anyone to break the trend.
Which segues nicely into the last question: what can we do about this thing?
First, let me say that I'm no expert on this. I'm actually more of an expert on being fake, to be quite honest. All I know is that I deeply desire to be real, and I'm starting to learn what that means. So how can we be the ones to step out and start being real in the one place in all the world where the truth should win out? How can streetlights shine into darkness that has clouded the home of light?
The main thing I can see is that we have to start wanting more of God so desperately that we don't care about our own images. We have to care more about what he thinks of us than what anyone else does. This is what it means for him to be our Lord. His opinion is the final word, and what he says goes, no matter what it makes us look like. If we start believing that, maybe we can be the ones to step out and take the first risk. We can't make anyone else be real, but we can show them they won't die if they try it!
Also, we have to confess and repent of our judgmental spirits. This will allow us to bless other people who are real enough to be honest about their problems instead of comparing our own struggles to theirs to see how we stack up. All judgment is comparison, and all comparison is irrelevant because God's love is infinite. What if ours started looking more like his?
We also have to stop getting the truth backwards. It's not that God is so good that his followers shouldn't have any problems; He's so good because welcomes us in spite of them! He fixes them too, but for whatever reason he hasn't chosen to do it instantaneously in most cases. We have to let him be who he is in this instead of making him into a false image of what we want him to be.
I'm sure there is much more to be said on this topic-- does anyone else have any ideas to share on how we can help? I'll end with one I just thought of, which is actually the most important one: prayer. I want to start asking God to change the problems I see instead of just worrying about them. I want to talk less and pray more.
So-- God, change what you want to change. Make us more like you. Make your body whole. Let us walk in integrity, bravery, and community. Give us real relationships with real people, and let us worship you in Spirit and in truth. Amen.
Showing posts with label orphans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orphans. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2012
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Godly sorrow
I think one of the driving forces of our culture in America is the desire for constant happiness. Because painful emotions are so, well, painful, we do our best to push them completely to the margins of our lives. For marketers, this is the perfect cultural climate, mostly because happiness is often so fleeting. They go ahead and prey on the idea that we should always be happy and that we should use such and such product to attain that goal, which works well for them because we quickly get tired of things and then have to get more to get back to that elusive happy place. The cruel trick of this system is that we end up feeling like there's something wrong with us, not the system, because we aren't happy all the time.
But what if pain really has a purpose? What if those unsettling feelings are important windows into who we actually are and who we are supposed to be becoming?
I'm reading this book right now called The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III (by the way, don't you wish you could put "the third" after your name? It makes it sound much more professional and important, don't you think?) that basically talks about using our painful and dark emotions as a bridge to greater relationship with God. It is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. In light of our American culture, what it got me thinking about was the specific value of the sorrow we are trying so hard to avoid feeling (but honestly, can never truly escape). The Bible has a lot to say on this topic, but here's just one verse that has really captivated my attention:
"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" --2 Corinthians 7:10
No wonder the world is trying to avoid sorrow; perhaps they've picked up on the fact that their particular brand of it leads to death! It's perfectly natural, apart from God's intervention, to try to avoid pain at all costs. But do you catch what happens to the progression when God enters the mix? Godly sorrow --> repentance --> salvation. What an unexpected endpoint! Sorrow helps to save us?
Here's how I see that working: it's the difference between two words that are very similar and thus often confused, despair vs. desperation.
The great thing (or one of the many great things) about words, as English majors such as myself will be quick to tell you, is that they have such subtlety of meaning. Very rarely do two words mean exactly the same thing. Even synonyms usually have some subtle difference that separates them or some situation where one is more appropriate than the other; otherwise, why would we need two different words? Anyway, despair and desperation are two words like this. They are commonly used synonymously, but they are different and the distinction is an important one.
Despair means the loss of hope. A more accurate synonym for it would be hopelessness. It's easy to see where that leads: people who lose hope give up. This is sorrow leading to death, or worldly sorrow to use the terms of Paul in the verse above.
Desperation means the state of recognizing that one is in very serious and pressing need. A more accurate synonym for this one is brokenness. This leads people to do whatever is necessary to see that serious need be met. This sorrow, by God's grace, can often lead to repentance and life-- godly sorrow, as Paul would say.
See the difference? Despair looks at sorrow and sees no way out, so it refuses to deal with pain, opting to drown it out or die trying. Desperation looks right at the sorrow, enters in and cries out to be comforted. Despair sees no way out; desperation sees that there is only one way out and clings to its last chance for dear life.
On its own, of course, desperation isn't enough. But, when we realize that God is that way out, all of a sudden desperation leads right to salvation. We pursue God with single-minded fury and passion, turning from all the things that hinder us from getting to him (which is a pretty good definition of repentance, if I do say so myself), and holding onto the corner of his robe (see Mark 5:25-34) like our lives depend on it (which they do). End result: salvation, and no regrets.
Let me finish by going back to my definition of desperation, recognizing that we have a serious and pressing need. Is there ever a time when we don't have a serious need for God? No. Still, sometimes we feel like that need might not be too serious or pressing, that we can maybe handle things on our own for a little while. The trick for us is realizing that desperation is our constant state. There is only one way out of our problems, and it's Jesus. The only power that we have available to walk in comes from him, but he invites us to share it if we'll only admit we need it.
Maybe that's why God gives us sorrow and pain, to remind us that we need him and to give us access to his strength. God told Isaiah that he would give his people "the bread of adversity and the water of affliction" (Isaiah 30:20). Can it be true that these painful things are actually our food, the sustenance that we need to survive? It could be, if they drive us to God in godly sorrow. So, is it possible that by tuning out our pain and sorrow in all the various ways that we choose, we turn down God's great invitation to draw near and experience his power and salvation and life?
It's something to think about.
But what if pain really has a purpose? What if those unsettling feelings are important windows into who we actually are and who we are supposed to be becoming?
I'm reading this book right now called The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III (by the way, don't you wish you could put "the third" after your name? It makes it sound much more professional and important, don't you think?) that basically talks about using our painful and dark emotions as a bridge to greater relationship with God. It is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. In light of our American culture, what it got me thinking about was the specific value of the sorrow we are trying so hard to avoid feeling (but honestly, can never truly escape). The Bible has a lot to say on this topic, but here's just one verse that has really captivated my attention:
"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" --2 Corinthians 7:10
No wonder the world is trying to avoid sorrow; perhaps they've picked up on the fact that their particular brand of it leads to death! It's perfectly natural, apart from God's intervention, to try to avoid pain at all costs. But do you catch what happens to the progression when God enters the mix? Godly sorrow --> repentance --> salvation. What an unexpected endpoint! Sorrow helps to save us?
Here's how I see that working: it's the difference between two words that are very similar and thus often confused, despair vs. desperation.
The great thing (or one of the many great things) about words, as English majors such as myself will be quick to tell you, is that they have such subtlety of meaning. Very rarely do two words mean exactly the same thing. Even synonyms usually have some subtle difference that separates them or some situation where one is more appropriate than the other; otherwise, why would we need two different words? Anyway, despair and desperation are two words like this. They are commonly used synonymously, but they are different and the distinction is an important one.
Despair means the loss of hope. A more accurate synonym for it would be hopelessness. It's easy to see where that leads: people who lose hope give up. This is sorrow leading to death, or worldly sorrow to use the terms of Paul in the verse above.
Desperation means the state of recognizing that one is in very serious and pressing need. A more accurate synonym for this one is brokenness. This leads people to do whatever is necessary to see that serious need be met. This sorrow, by God's grace, can often lead to repentance and life-- godly sorrow, as Paul would say.
See the difference? Despair looks at sorrow and sees no way out, so it refuses to deal with pain, opting to drown it out or die trying. Desperation looks right at the sorrow, enters in and cries out to be comforted. Despair sees no way out; desperation sees that there is only one way out and clings to its last chance for dear life.
On its own, of course, desperation isn't enough. But, when we realize that God is that way out, all of a sudden desperation leads right to salvation. We pursue God with single-minded fury and passion, turning from all the things that hinder us from getting to him (which is a pretty good definition of repentance, if I do say so myself), and holding onto the corner of his robe (see Mark 5:25-34) like our lives depend on it (which they do). End result: salvation, and no regrets.
Let me finish by going back to my definition of desperation, recognizing that we have a serious and pressing need. Is there ever a time when we don't have a serious need for God? No. Still, sometimes we feel like that need might not be too serious or pressing, that we can maybe handle things on our own for a little while. The trick for us is realizing that desperation is our constant state. There is only one way out of our problems, and it's Jesus. The only power that we have available to walk in comes from him, but he invites us to share it if we'll only admit we need it.
Maybe that's why God gives us sorrow and pain, to remind us that we need him and to give us access to his strength. God told Isaiah that he would give his people "the bread of adversity and the water of affliction" (Isaiah 30:20). Can it be true that these painful things are actually our food, the sustenance that we need to survive? It could be, if they drive us to God in godly sorrow. So, is it possible that by tuning out our pain and sorrow in all the various ways that we choose, we turn down God's great invitation to draw near and experience his power and salvation and life?
It's something to think about.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Constellations
The Bible is quite a big book. I've spent a lot of time studying it, but the funny thing about it is that there's always more to learn. It's almost like there's actually too much in there for our brains to actually keep hold of at once! This is really one of the amazing things about being a follower of Jesus, but I think that it can also lead to a problem that too many Christians fall into: compartmentalization. We study or hear a teaching about one specific topic or verse, and we can remember and hold onto that one for awhile. The next week, we get some other individual answer and we hold onto that. The week after that, a different one, and so on. Now, this seems like it would work out, the constant accumulation and stacking of knowledge in theory giving us an ever larger database of wisdom to consult as we face the issues of our lives.
Unfortunately, what I'm finding to be true for my life is that my capacity for successfully remembering and retaining the lessons I learn this way is much smaller than I would hope for. If I had to make a highly scientific and educated guess, I would say that my capacity level is approximately 3. That is, I can keep track of about three life lessons at a time. More than that, and some of them start getting pushed back into the dark recesses of my brain. This is not to say that they are forgotten, just that they're not at the forefront, not at the top of my mind bursting to be lived out.
Here's the thing, though: the problem I mentioned earlier is not a problem with me and my limited capacity. God knows I'm frail and he hasn't called me to more than he's given (or giving) me grace to do. The problem is with this weird system that we accidentally fall into as Christians where we compartmentalize our life lessons and try to apply them separately (and, all too often, one at a time). We study the Bible this way too, focusing on one verse or concept at the expense of the rest. It's kind of like going outside in Cleveland at night. We live our lives in such a polluted space with so many other things filling our vision that we can only see one or two stars at a time. They seem disconnected, individual points of light lost in swirling darkness.
Can you see where I'm headed with this analogy? The individual stars certainly aren't bad things. But, God has much more for us than just a couple stars here and there. He wants to give us the whole heaven, really. And he wants our lives to be more than just fragments and splintered efforts at holding onto a few lessons we've learned. Psalm 86:11 has to be our constant prayer: "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name."
A united heart. Not some collection of insights, feelings, lessons, and whatever else we accumulate along the way, but one integrated whole, moving in one direction, only toward God.
God wants to give us this wholeness. I think that's why he made his book the way he did. 66 different books, one purpose. It's really incredible how the Bible is an integrated whole given its construction, but it is, and the more I read it, the more God connects the dots of the individual stars into the overarching master plan. I'm not claiming to see the whole sky or anything, mind you, but every now and then I think I at least see some constellations. So, from time to time I might use this space to diagram some of them and play some "connect the scriptures." In that spirit, here's what I would have to call the big dipper:
God has told us what we need to do to live an integrated life, to have a united heart. Remember how I was saying that we live with so much going on that we can only focus on one or two things at a time? Turns out I didn't come up with that idea, Jesus did. He told Martha in Luke 10:41-42, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." Funny, she was just like us. She was so worried about doing the right things for Jesus and getting her house in order that she totally missed the point. What was the one thing that was needed? What Mary was doing, sitting at Jesus' feet.
So, Biblical transitive property: A) Martha was a normal person like us. B) For her, God said only one thing was needed. Therefore C) For us also, only one thing is needed. We MUST sit at Jesus' feet. That's it. (By the way, some people might object to this by saying that nothing will ever get done if we all live this way. That, however, is ridiculous because if we spend all our time that close to God, when he moves we'll have to move as well. If he's doing something we'll have to do it too, just in order to stay close. And Jesus definitely didn't spend all his time sitting around. He also liked healing the sick, throwing tables, making the wise look foolish and hanging out with little kids, to name just a few. I think the real issue people have with living at his feet is that they don't really like the things he wants us to do.)
Parenthetical tangents aside then, all we need to do is sit at Jesus' feet. This is what Jude was talking about when he said to "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (verse 21). It sounds so simple: keep yourselves in God's love. Live there. Soak in it. You don't have to earn it; it's a given, so just accept it. So why in the wonderful world of Disney do we have so much trouble doing this?
Short answer: because we have orphan hearts (see the previous entry for more on that). Two problems go into this. First, we all mess up sometimes (ok, a lot of times) and do things that aren't really worthy of love. Second, we all have been in situations where people in authority over us responded to our mistakes with anger and wrath instead of (or more stickily, mixed with) loving discipline. The end result that keeps us away from God is fear. Somehere inside we seem to be afraid that God is just gearing up to zap us for the wrong that we have so obviously committed. But, God is perfect by definition, so his love for us is perfect, and "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). The key word here is "because." It means that perfect love has to get rid of fear, because of fear's connection with punishment. By implication, there is no punishment in love.
To summarize, if we rest in God's love, we have no need of fear because there is no possibility of punishment. I know that this is dicey ground to walk, so hear me out. The important thing is the difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is associated with the anger and wrath we have all felt from those above us that leaves us wounded. The truth is, though, that once we accept Jesus' sacrifice for us and his love, God has no more wrath for us, ever. The entire punishment for all our sins, past, present and future, has already been borne by Jesus on the cross. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). There is no leftover punishment that God reserves to pound us with as we mess up, since it is already used up.
Do sins still have negative consequences? Of course, but they do NOT change God's heart towards us in any way. He allows us to experience the troubles related to our mistakes "because the Lord disciplines those he loves" (Proverbs 3:12). He loves us enough to help us stop doing the things that are hurting us. This is love, not wrath; discipline, not punishment. Discipline is not punitive; it makes us disciples. See the linguistic connection? So, God uses our mistakes to draw us closer, not to push us away. We're the ones that push away from him because we think we aren't worthy of his unaccountable love.
But we are. Not through our own goodness or effort though, so don't get the wrong idea. The coolest thing of all is that, similarly to how Christ bore our sins and the punishment connected with them, he also has become "The LORD our righteousness" (Jeremiah 33:16). This was what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:9 when he said that his one desire was to "be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
Righteousness comes only from God. But, if we believe, he gives us credit for Jesus' righteousness, so we don't have to feel unworthy. That lets us, like Paul, be "found in him." Sounds an awful lot like sitting at his feet, no? I think that connects the last dot of this particular constellation. That's how we live with a united heart. The Bible is amazing.
So, now you know why it was so long between my updates. This entry has been stirring in me for quite awhile, and I just didn't feel like writing anything else in between. I plan to update a bit more frequently in the future, but I wanted to get this one out, because really everything else I say should be taken in light of this quest for a united heart and life. It's the redefinition I was talking about before. Just one thing to hold onto, and it's so simple. Whatever my situation, I will sit at Jesus' feet.
P.S. The whole time I was writing this, the other tab of my browser was on http://www.blueletterbible.org/ which is probably the best website on the internet. Yeah, you heard me, the whole internet. Any possible way you could really want to study or search the Bible is on there. Check it out! Oh, and on a slightly relevant note to that, all the Bible quotations in this post (and actually in this blog as a whole) are from the NIV unless I say otherwise because that's what I'm most familiar with and it's easily accessible. The only one in this post that isn't is Psalm 86:11 which is NKJV, which I used because occasionally the NIV doesn't accurately convey the force or meaning or just coolness that a scripture should have, and this verse is a prime example of that. If you compare them on Blue letter, you'll see why. OK, that's really the end now. Until next time...
Unfortunately, what I'm finding to be true for my life is that my capacity for successfully remembering and retaining the lessons I learn this way is much smaller than I would hope for. If I had to make a highly scientific and educated guess, I would say that my capacity level is approximately 3. That is, I can keep track of about three life lessons at a time. More than that, and some of them start getting pushed back into the dark recesses of my brain. This is not to say that they are forgotten, just that they're not at the forefront, not at the top of my mind bursting to be lived out.
Here's the thing, though: the problem I mentioned earlier is not a problem with me and my limited capacity. God knows I'm frail and he hasn't called me to more than he's given (or giving) me grace to do. The problem is with this weird system that we accidentally fall into as Christians where we compartmentalize our life lessons and try to apply them separately (and, all too often, one at a time). We study the Bible this way too, focusing on one verse or concept at the expense of the rest. It's kind of like going outside in Cleveland at night. We live our lives in such a polluted space with so many other things filling our vision that we can only see one or two stars at a time. They seem disconnected, individual points of light lost in swirling darkness.
Can you see where I'm headed with this analogy? The individual stars certainly aren't bad things. But, God has much more for us than just a couple stars here and there. He wants to give us the whole heaven, really. And he wants our lives to be more than just fragments and splintered efforts at holding onto a few lessons we've learned. Psalm 86:11 has to be our constant prayer: "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name."
A united heart. Not some collection of insights, feelings, lessons, and whatever else we accumulate along the way, but one integrated whole, moving in one direction, only toward God.
God wants to give us this wholeness. I think that's why he made his book the way he did. 66 different books, one purpose. It's really incredible how the Bible is an integrated whole given its construction, but it is, and the more I read it, the more God connects the dots of the individual stars into the overarching master plan. I'm not claiming to see the whole sky or anything, mind you, but every now and then I think I at least see some constellations. So, from time to time I might use this space to diagram some of them and play some "connect the scriptures." In that spirit, here's what I would have to call the big dipper:
God has told us what we need to do to live an integrated life, to have a united heart. Remember how I was saying that we live with so much going on that we can only focus on one or two things at a time? Turns out I didn't come up with that idea, Jesus did. He told Martha in Luke 10:41-42, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." Funny, she was just like us. She was so worried about doing the right things for Jesus and getting her house in order that she totally missed the point. What was the one thing that was needed? What Mary was doing, sitting at Jesus' feet.
So, Biblical transitive property: A) Martha was a normal person like us. B) For her, God said only one thing was needed. Therefore C) For us also, only one thing is needed. We MUST sit at Jesus' feet. That's it. (By the way, some people might object to this by saying that nothing will ever get done if we all live this way. That, however, is ridiculous because if we spend all our time that close to God, when he moves we'll have to move as well. If he's doing something we'll have to do it too, just in order to stay close. And Jesus definitely didn't spend all his time sitting around. He also liked healing the sick, throwing tables, making the wise look foolish and hanging out with little kids, to name just a few. I think the real issue people have with living at his feet is that they don't really like the things he wants us to do.)
Parenthetical tangents aside then, all we need to do is sit at Jesus' feet. This is what Jude was talking about when he said to "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (verse 21). It sounds so simple: keep yourselves in God's love. Live there. Soak in it. You don't have to earn it; it's a given, so just accept it. So why in the wonderful world of Disney do we have so much trouble doing this?
Short answer: because we have orphan hearts (see the previous entry for more on that). Two problems go into this. First, we all mess up sometimes (ok, a lot of times) and do things that aren't really worthy of love. Second, we all have been in situations where people in authority over us responded to our mistakes with anger and wrath instead of (or more stickily, mixed with) loving discipline. The end result that keeps us away from God is fear. Somehere inside we seem to be afraid that God is just gearing up to zap us for the wrong that we have so obviously committed. But, God is perfect by definition, so his love for us is perfect, and "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). The key word here is "because." It means that perfect love has to get rid of fear, because of fear's connection with punishment. By implication, there is no punishment in love.
To summarize, if we rest in God's love, we have no need of fear because there is no possibility of punishment. I know that this is dicey ground to walk, so hear me out. The important thing is the difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is associated with the anger and wrath we have all felt from those above us that leaves us wounded. The truth is, though, that once we accept Jesus' sacrifice for us and his love, God has no more wrath for us, ever. The entire punishment for all our sins, past, present and future, has already been borne by Jesus on the cross. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). There is no leftover punishment that God reserves to pound us with as we mess up, since it is already used up.
Do sins still have negative consequences? Of course, but they do NOT change God's heart towards us in any way. He allows us to experience the troubles related to our mistakes "because the Lord disciplines those he loves" (Proverbs 3:12). He loves us enough to help us stop doing the things that are hurting us. This is love, not wrath; discipline, not punishment. Discipline is not punitive; it makes us disciples. See the linguistic connection? So, God uses our mistakes to draw us closer, not to push us away. We're the ones that push away from him because we think we aren't worthy of his unaccountable love.
But we are. Not through our own goodness or effort though, so don't get the wrong idea. The coolest thing of all is that, similarly to how Christ bore our sins and the punishment connected with them, he also has become "The LORD our righteousness" (Jeremiah 33:16). This was what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:9 when he said that his one desire was to "be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
Righteousness comes only from God. But, if we believe, he gives us credit for Jesus' righteousness, so we don't have to feel unworthy. That lets us, like Paul, be "found in him." Sounds an awful lot like sitting at his feet, no? I think that connects the last dot of this particular constellation. That's how we live with a united heart. The Bible is amazing.
So, now you know why it was so long between my updates. This entry has been stirring in me for quite awhile, and I just didn't feel like writing anything else in between. I plan to update a bit more frequently in the future, but I wanted to get this one out, because really everything else I say should be taken in light of this quest for a united heart and life. It's the redefinition I was talking about before. Just one thing to hold onto, and it's so simple. Whatever my situation, I will sit at Jesus' feet.
P.S. The whole time I was writing this, the other tab of my browser was on http://www.blueletterbible.org/ which is probably the best website on the internet. Yeah, you heard me, the whole internet. Any possible way you could really want to study or search the Bible is on there. Check it out! Oh, and on a slightly relevant note to that, all the Bible quotations in this post (and actually in this blog as a whole) are from the NIV unless I say otherwise because that's what I'm most familiar with and it's easily accessible. The only one in this post that isn't is Psalm 86:11 which is NKJV, which I used because occasionally the NIV doesn't accurately convey the force or meaning or just coolness that a scripture should have, and this verse is a prime example of that. If you compare them on Blue letter, you'll see why. OK, that's really the end now. Until next time...
Thursday, May 7, 2009
A prayer for the orphans
As some of you may already know, one of my biggest interests in life is poetry, both reading and writing. My ongoing side project for the past couple of years has been working on an initial manuscript for a book of my poems, which I hope will someday be good enough to be published. Poetry is really one of the best ways that I'm able to express the deep things that get stirred around inside me from time to time, and just as with my more prosaic thoughts, I imagine that a lot of times people will be able to identify with them. So, every now and then when one of my poems seems appropriate to a subject that I want to talk about, I'll post it here.
By the way, I'm always open to comments and suggestions on my poetry (and my other postings too!). Just click on where it says comments below the post and tell me what you think. Fellow poets, feel free to use that forum to suggest possible edits as well, or to post your own poems if they relate to the subject. Just be nice :)
What follows is the first of my poem blogs (plogs?), which is a poem that I actually wrote a long time ago (a few of you may have already seen it) but seems more applicable than ever right now. Enjoy:
Redefinition
You are valuable in a way
that he never said
and your every smile stands
in cut glass defiance against
all the cries, not admissions
of anything or flags in the wind
but repairs that bring strength
in the gaps between
all you deserve diverging
from him to create
room for the incandescent
gift of heat instead
burning your new word
across the silent fields together
so you never are defined again
by what you never had.
Just so you know, that huge break means the poem is over. Anyway, recently at my church (check out http://www.vineyardcleveland.com/ for more info and to actually hear the sermons I'm just about to talk about) my pastor has been talking about something he calls the "orphan heart." People that have this heart live with feelings of abandonment and inadequacy because, in some area or another, they never received the love they needed to grow. Usually, it seems to me that this comes from being mistreated or neglected by a father, although I'm sure mothers and other influential figures can have the same effect. And because none of our parents are perfect, it really seems like all of us deal with this orphaned feeling in some way or another.
So, this poem is for the orphans. It's a fragile group of people, but one in which I have no choice but to include myself as well. And I guarantee you that Cleveland is full of them. The challenge for us, as streetlights, is to bring the Father's love to these people. A challenge, because a lot of them will run from us. A challenge, because our own brokenness wants to make us hide from them. And a challenge, more than anything else, because a lot of us are just too busy to notice how amazing God is and tap into his heart of love for us and for those we find ourselves in contact with.
That, though, is also the reason we have hope. If we pay attention, God's love is so big that it makes obstacles pale in comparison. He wants to redefine us, so that we can pass that gift along to others. We ARE his. We ARE loved. We ARE important. Who wouldn't want someone to tell them that?
So, I'm attempting to let God redefine me in this transitional season. That's the only way I'll have something to give to my city. But what I'll have... it'll be exactly what they need.
By the way, I'm always open to comments and suggestions on my poetry (and my other postings too!). Just click on where it says comments below the post and tell me what you think. Fellow poets, feel free to use that forum to suggest possible edits as well, or to post your own poems if they relate to the subject. Just be nice :)
What follows is the first of my poem blogs (plogs?), which is a poem that I actually wrote a long time ago (a few of you may have already seen it) but seems more applicable than ever right now. Enjoy:
Redefinition
You are valuable in a way
that he never said
and your every smile stands
in cut glass defiance against
all the cries, not admissions
of anything or flags in the wind
but repairs that bring strength
in the gaps between
all you deserve diverging
from him to create
room for the incandescent
gift of heat instead
burning your new word
across the silent fields together
so you never are defined again
by what you never had.
Just so you know, that huge break means the poem is over. Anyway, recently at my church (check out http://www.vineyardcleveland.com/ for more info and to actually hear the sermons I'm just about to talk about) my pastor has been talking about something he calls the "orphan heart." People that have this heart live with feelings of abandonment and inadequacy because, in some area or another, they never received the love they needed to grow. Usually, it seems to me that this comes from being mistreated or neglected by a father, although I'm sure mothers and other influential figures can have the same effect. And because none of our parents are perfect, it really seems like all of us deal with this orphaned feeling in some way or another.
So, this poem is for the orphans. It's a fragile group of people, but one in which I have no choice but to include myself as well. And I guarantee you that Cleveland is full of them. The challenge for us, as streetlights, is to bring the Father's love to these people. A challenge, because a lot of them will run from us. A challenge, because our own brokenness wants to make us hide from them. And a challenge, more than anything else, because a lot of us are just too busy to notice how amazing God is and tap into his heart of love for us and for those we find ourselves in contact with.
That, though, is also the reason we have hope. If we pay attention, God's love is so big that it makes obstacles pale in comparison. He wants to redefine us, so that we can pass that gift along to others. We ARE his. We ARE loved. We ARE important. Who wouldn't want someone to tell them that?
So, I'm attempting to let God redefine me in this transitional season. That's the only way I'll have something to give to my city. But what I'll have... it'll be exactly what they need.
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