Whose voice is that?

Sometimes I hear about people wanting to do outlandish things in the name of God.  Not just going across the street and talking to their neighbor (many of them wouldn't even consider THAT!!) No, I'm talking about leaving home and family, going to a very dangerous place and risking orphan-hood for one's children, seemingly just to prove a point and get outside one's comfort zone in a big way.  

God's in the habit of getting people outside their comfort zone, that's for sure.  Lots of people in history have stepped into some pretty uncomfortable places to do things that they were sure God had told them to do. The thing with that though, is that when God took the initiative and contacted them, they wanted to be SURE that it was God.  Gideon is a prime example. 

Now Gideon gets a bad rep for putting out that fleece. You know what? I think he was really smart.  I think that he had to be SURE that it was God talking because this was a big step he was going to take, delivering Israel from the occupying Midianites (who were some really nasty-and-not-nice folks, burning people's crops and killing their children, stealing their livestock, things like that.) God hadn't actually spoken to anyone through an angel since Joshua - several generations past - so Gideon was pretty insistent that he be sure it was God talking or he wasn't going to budge. That's a wise move, because he knew that things were going to get tough!! No way was he going to risk his life for someone other than God. And God NEVER condemned him for his fleeces, for they were set out with a burning desire to know the truth! 

Once convinced, though - nothing, no setback, no obstacle was enough to make Gideon doubt his calling.  He lived up to what the angel called him on the first day (ironically, while he was threshing wheat in a pit, at night, for fear of being discovered by the Midianites): "Mighty man of valor."  God came through for him, that time and every time.

But sometimes - these days when we are so steeped in tradition and complacency, when there seems to be no direction (or we just don't wait on God long enough to hear it) - some people just get fed up with the status quo and decide to take matters into their own hands.  They get this idea in their heads of doing great exploits, of making their mark, of challenging their limits, and nothing or no one can dissuade them that it is not God's will.  So they plow ahead and ask Him to bless their well-laid plans.     

This is insanity, pure and simple.  I wonder sometimes if these people are really only carrying out their grandiose schemes for shock value, to make a splash, rather than to really seek to do God's will.  The Scriptures make it clear: if God wants something done, He will provide the way; we won't have to chase after people and beg them to help us, fund us, or whatever.  We won't have to design a website, take out a full-page ad, go on the campaign trail, and/or do a telethon and play on people's sense of guilt and shame. God will open doors and HE will be better at it than we could ever be.  

If I hear a voice or get an impression telling me to do something completely radical that will affect not only my life but my husband's and/or my kids', I'd like to think that I would be more inclined to ask God for confirmation, like Gideon did, and more than just once!  It's not wrong to ask, "Is this really You? Show me in a way that I will know for sure!"  And, "If this is not You - show me that too, because unless You lead the way, I don't want to go any further."  

If the voice I hear isn't God's but my own imagination of what I think He wants (or someone else's idea, could be another believer's and it could even be the enemy's!) - and I go ahead like gangbusters - I am guaranteed that I will fall flat on my face.  It's a sure thing.  That's why I would want to be absolutely sure of His leading.  And if it is Him... I would want Him to lead the rest of the way too, instead of me going off half-cocked and lousing up what He started.  And I have.  Way too often. 

It's so much better to be able to know and recognize His voice when He speaks.  The more we recognize it, the faster we can get to the letting-Him-lead part.  

And that's the exciting stuff. 

Shhhh - it's a secret!

It's well-guarded; it has to be.  We go about our lives; Sunday comes and we go to church and we put on a plastic smile, shake hands and interact with people while we talk about inane, superficial things that mean nothing, while the whole time we are aching, perhaps even feeling dead inside - misery washes over us in waves.  And we talk about how wonderful the Lord is, how blessed we are.

We're lying.  

We're afraid to tell someone (perhaps even ourselves) what our struggles are.  No matter what the struggles are, it seems!  Some fight a daily battle with addiction.  Others' family relationships are in the toilet.  Still another might feel so lonely that he or she is thinking about suicide.  Someone else might be bullied at school or at work.  And more people than you can shake a stick at, suffer from prolonged and deep-seated depression. Yes, in the church. Yet nobody says a word. We're afraid that on top of the struggles we are facing, the last thing we need is to be judged and condemned for having them.

And we know, instinctively, that we will be.  This is the thing.  Evangelical Christians aren't really well known for their accepting attitudes.  More Christians have been hurt in church or by church people than they have by their non-churched friends.  I know that's true in my life.  With rare exceptions, I prefer to be with people who aren't your traditional right-wing, conservative, evangelical born-again Christians.  There's just too much judgment out there.  Sad to say, I've participated in it on occasion ... the 'prayer chains' that are usually nothing more than glorified gossip networks, the snide comments about what someone was wearing today or how long the pastor spoke today, ... the list is endless.  You know when that stops? it stops when YOU're the one who is the target of all those nasty comments.  Then you find out what it feels like.  But I digress slightly.

The truth of the matter is that in today's Christian culture, nobody wants to hear your "in progress" story. That's not considered a testimony.  So it's, "Shhh! be quiet!"

This is the Christian world's dirty little secret.  Fundamentalist Christians don't want to hear the tale unless it's a "success" story that will make them ooh and ahh, that will support their little fantasies that everything turns out all right - and that's the good part, so why talk about the bad parts unless there's a happy ending?  They don't want to listen to the in-between details; they want you to go through your stuff on your own and then tell them about the miracle part. Cut to the chase. What? you're still going through stuff? there's been no resolution? you're having difficulty emotionally?  Well!! - that's not speaking in faith!!  

No, that's grappling with reality.  It's telling the truth, refusing to hide.  It's a desperate attempt to know God IN the struggle, to see if there is someone out there who might just BE there and not try to judge or change the person who's having a hard time coping, but to come alongside, to love no matter what, and to let the weary traveler know that he or she is not alone.  

It doesn't take much, really.  A few kind words spoken, even in passing.  Like someone did for me yesterday in a department store - just showing support and love.  I can't begin to describe the gratitude I felt for that.  No words are even necessary sometimes.  A warm hug speaks volumes.  It lets me know that the person is with me and not against me.  Goodness knows I have felt pierced, crucified by more than enough Christians who let me know by their absence, by them turning their backs to me or ignoring me, that they are against me.  

I know that feeling of judgment, of condemnation, of someone (in essence) shushing me because what I have to say is not worth listening to until I get my act together and can wind up a size six on some Christian talk show in a five-hundred-dollar skirt suit.  

Life doesn't work like that.  And it would sure help if we'd just be honest and accept people for who and where they are.

The Bondage of Self

I'm not much for formalized, pre-packaged prayers.  There are only a few that even capture my attention - the Lord's prayer obviously (a.k.a the "our Father") is one of them.  But in the last few weeks another suggested prayer has been on my mind.

It goes like this (modernized to remove the thees and thous and other Elizabethan language): "God, I offer myself to You, to build with me and do with me as You wish.  Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do what You want. Take away my difficulties, so that victory over them will bear witness - to those I might help - of Your power, Your love, and Your way of life. Amen."  

I've discovered that this is not a one-time prayer.  It doesn't mean that I become a Christian all over again when I say it (or need to say it, which is often) - I only discovered it about two years ago I guess - what I mean is that the problem with a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) is that it keeps crawling off the altar.  

Praying this prayer (and meaning it) reminds me that He is God - and I am not.  I give lip service to this fact of course (what Christian doesn't?) but sometimes I find myself acting more like I believe I am God and He is not. 

Priorities.

Some of the people I hang around with say, in reference to relationship with God, that "God is either everything or He is nothing."  What they mean is that there are no half-measures with God.  He will start where we are, to be sure, but He will not give up on us until we are totally and completely committed to Him - a never-ending process!  He does this, not to burst out into an evil laugh and then torture us, but because He knows we are never happier than when we give Him the central part of our lives, the core of who we are - and doing this willingly cannot help but transform us from the inside out.  Slowly.  This offering ourselves up to Him daily (sometimes hourly!), this identification with and submission to His way of life (day by day) is, as Romans 12:2 says, our only reasonable response to His love: our spiritual service of day-by-day worship.  

Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening.  But that's not what matters.  Let me give you an illustration.  There was this woman once who was so fed up with her own inability to retain spiritual truths.  She complained to me about it.  "It just goes in one ear and out the other - my mind is like a sieve!!"  I seized the opportunity her words gave me.  "So," I said.  "What happens when you run clean water through a dirty sieve?" Her eyes widened.  "It gets clean."  I nodded. "Exactly. You may not think anything is happening. But it is happening without your even knowing about it."  

Other times I get inklings of the fact that there's a transformation going on.  My unexpected reaction to a problem that would have perplexed me before will sometimes give me a clue to what God is doing in me.  

But in either case, I've found that the best and safest way to live is just to stay close to Him and to keep offering myself to Him, to build with and do with as He wishes - to keep asking Him to relieve me of the bondage of Self, so that I can do what He wants me to do the way He wants me to do it, to remove the barriers to my usefulness to Him so that I can reach the people He wants me to reach.  And once in a while, in His grace, He lets me see just a small corner of what He is doing in and through me.     

Uncontainable

I recently heard someone say that salvation was not a one-time decision and that emotional decisions were not to be trusted - the person even went as far as to say that decisions made in the heat of the moment of emotion were not valid. 

Hm.  That's kind of a really wide-sweeping generalization. I wonder if that person ever fell in love. 

It's convenient to think that because a decision to embrace God in any way at all (even if only superficially) doesn't produce the desired end result right away, that it isn't real.  It's easy to blame the emotion (which, by the way, God gave us!!) and claim that it "didn't count."  That puts God into a nice manageable box, one that puts conditions on how far His grace reaches, one that puts limits on how great His power is.  The problem is...He's uncontainable. 

I can only offer the benefit of my own experience here. I made an emotional decision for Christ when I was 11 years old.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, all I know was that I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that I needed God and that I could not possibly get to heaven by my own merits. I was scared to death of going to hell.  My conversion was "fire insurance" and nothing more.  

Yet, from that moment on, I can testify that through all of my wanderings, God had placed His finger on my life and His seal on my heart, and I was marked, whether I wanted to be or not.  How do I know?  because He WOULD NOT let me go.  He would let me go to the end of my rope - and there was a LOT of rope - and that was all.  The more I tried to fight Him, the more the rope tightened, and the more miserable I was.  I have said before and will continue to say it: there is absolutely no more miserable creature on the face of the earth than a Christian who is running from God. 

Source (via Google Images):
http://4disposablewomen.blogspot.ca/2011/12/mondays-
meditation-too-big-to-fit-in.html

The Hound of Heaven is relentless.  He will persistently pursue us, in infinite love and grace, until we are overwhelmed by His wooing and embrace Him whole-heartedly. That's what He wants.  

This is a different kind of dynamic than 'conviction' as we think of it.  It's more like what the prophet Hosea experienced.  God told him to go marry a prostitute.  On purpose.  Wow. And not only to marry her KNOWING she would go back to her old lifestyle, but to go and woo her back, every single time.  Over and over again.  And never once to draw up a divorce decree, even though he had every legal right to do so.  

He gave his heart to her, and she broke it into smithereens, over and over again - so that God could make a point to His people.  

His grace doesn't depend on us.  It depends on Him. And He will NEVER give up on us.  Once His, we are HIS. He becomes responsible for looking after us.  

That kind of unconditional love is beyond our understanding and it's easier for us to say, "Well, it doesn't count if we walk away." But God can't be contained in that kind of box.  He is far too big.

He'll break out.  He'll surprise us with His grace.  He'll lavish His love on us, whether we want it or not.

Guaranteed.

El Shaddai

Humans have been asking the questions of the universe for as long as there has been recorded history.  Why am I here? Is there something more? Is there justice in this world?  Why is good punished and evil rewarded?  What's beyond this existence? 

These are good questions.  

Source (from Google Images):
http://blog.withings.com/en/2011/09/30/a-short-history-of-the-weighing-scale/

Ancient Egyptians believed that after death, the god of the dead, Anubis, weighed the human heart against a feather.  If one's heart was light, it balanced and one could go to the afterlife and have all the things for which one had prepared to live comfortably.  If not, then one would be tormented and not be allowed to live that full life.  So there you have it:  Heaven... and hell.  

Most every religion has that concept. We don't see justice happening here; it is comforting to believe that someday it will be meted out.  

Jesus, though, turned that concept on its ear. He didn't focus on deeds.  He focused on motives. Heart.  Intimacy with God. All the good deeds in the world were not enough to gain entrance into His kingdom. He held people to a higher standard than even the law they were trying so hard to obey.

In the gospels, true, Jesus spoke twice as much about hell as He did about heaven.  However, the good news (gospel) that He preached had to do with avoiding the former and ending up in the latter.  And the sole criterion on which this would be based was nothing like what the religious people of the day said.  No, it wasn't based on whether you obeyed the law and did all the religious requirements of ritual, sacrifice, dos and don'ts.  It was based on a relationship into which God Himself would provide the only key.  That key was the sufficiency of the death of Jesus to meet the requirements of justice, not only for the wrongs of the whole world but for our individual wrongs.  

So the simple equation of "doing good = heaven" and "doing bad = hell" is a bit simplistic.  In a sense, the Egyptians had a bit more balanced view (pardon the pun) because it was the HEART that was weighed in the scales, not the deeds. 

The hinge-point of the scale is that God is just and that sin's penalty (death) must be paid.  Our hearts will always outweigh our own efforts to overcome the rampant selfishness that resides there.  But the death of Christ on our behalf is enough.  It is all-sufficient, no matter how heavy our hearts are.  All we need do is place them into His keeping and the scale will balance... for He is the great El Shaddai : the all-sufficient One, the God who is Enough.  

The more we realize how great this enough-ness is, how deep His grace runs, how wide and high His love is, the more we will desire God to search us, know us, and reveal Himself to us.  Then it is no longer about good deeds and bad deeds, but about knowing Him.  

And that is the whole point.

One, two, left, right

Many years ago I remember listening to someone tell a story about an experience in Viet Nam.  It was so vividly told ... that I felt that in a sense, I traveled with him on his journey and could relate, in what was a more emotional or spiritual sense.  Maybe I can tell you the tale.  It might be just what someone needs to hear. 

During a long forced march that had lasted since early morning, this man, who was a medic, fell further and further back in the column of men.  Their goal was the top of a particular hill so they could camp safely for the night. 

Source (via Google Images):
http://frontporchpoetry-janet.blogspot.ca/2010/01/lucky-one.html

They'd been trudging through napalm all day. Napalm (pronounced NAY-pawm) is what they called the burnt vegetation left behind when the air troops bombed an area - like a jungle, leaving nothing left, so as to not give the enemy anywhere to hide.  It left a fine, black powder everywhere and every step raised a little cloud of black ash.  The ash was in his pores, between his teeth, in all his crevices, grinding between his pack and his shoulder - and his feet were hot and blistered from the long hike through the napalm.  He was hot and sweaty, bone-tired, and gritty all over.  It was late in the afternoon. The sun had been relentless all day long. There was no relief. They hadn't even stopped to eat.  His company got more and more ahead of him.

Between him and the ascent to the final hill there was a beautiful valley, with tall, lush grass, a stream, and trees all around.  

It was like stepping into paradise. 

As he made his way through the water and to the other side of the stream, he decided to sit on the bank for a few minutes.  His 80-pound pack was made heavier by the 20-pound mortar plate he had to bring with him (the base of a large field weapon).  When he sat on the bank, he did so pack and all. It took some of the pressure off his back and legs ... such a relief. The march of the day, the black napalm dust up his nose, were all forgotten. The water soothed those blisters in his boots.  "I'll just stay here," he thought, as he dangled his boots in the water and felt it swish between his toes.

And then the sun began to set, and it began to get cold.  And for the first time, the very real danger of his position became clear to him.  The most likely place for the enemy to hide, to lie in wait for an ambush - would be in tall grass, or in trees.  He looked around him.  Tall grass ... and trees. They were all around him.  Whoa boy. 

He had to stand up and hitch up his pack - made heavier now by the water, and climb up past the bank of the stream and up that hill ... that ugly old hill covered with the same dust they'd been walking through all day long.  The water in his boots made the blisters feel like they were boiling.  The only thing that kept him going was just one thing.  Putting one foot in front of the other ... to survive.  

To stay focused, he said out loud to himself, "One, two, left, right; one, two, left, right..." over and over again as he struggled up the steep embankment where he knew his company would be waiting at the top. But he didn't dare look at how far he had left to go.  Only one thing mattered.  "One. ... Two. ... Left. ... Right...." through clenched teeth.

Just when he thought he couldn't take another step, he heard a voice - a voice calling his name!  He looked up and there was a guy he had helped out, earlier in the day.  "Here, Doc, let me take that mortar plate." Immediately his pack got 20% lighter.  His feet still hurt, but somehow they didn't hurt quite so much.  One, two, left, right.  Then he heard another fellow's voice.  "Let me take your pack for you there.  Least I could do ..."  And the pack peeled off him and lifted from his sore shoulders.  He felt like he was flying.  Before long, the hill was behind him, the ground had evened under his feet and he was surrounded by his buddies, who were slapping him on the back and congratulating him - he was the last one to arrive.  But he made it.

He made it.

Transformation

Okay, if we have spent any time in or around evangelical churches, we pretty much know Romans 12:1,2 by heart - you know, present your bodies as living sacrifices, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, like that. 

Sometimes - okay, MOST times - I get the feeling that the expectation of the ones preaching the sermons, whether by TV, radio, or over the local pulpit, is that they tell us to do something (or not to do something) and we're supposed to get it.  Zap. Right away.  Immediate results. I believe that a lot of pastors - pardon me for saying so - are extremely "results-oriented."  And I believe that part of the reason why they burn out so fast is because of that gap between expectations and reality.  Another part is (I know this because many have said so) that they feel a greater weight of responsibility for us, as "those who must give an account before God."  They take this very seriously and sometimes they get the mind-set that the way we turn out is their doing.  (It's not true, but that's the thing about feeling responsible.  It can very easily get taken to the next level: guilt... and frustration.)

Let me lay this out.  Folks in full-time ministry are on the front lines. They are bombarded with spiritual challenges every minute of every day.  They are "ON" twenty-four / seven.  Their whole lives revolve around relationship with God and with other people, their whole schedule is God-oriented and service-focused.  They have a church-centered job.  In spite of the pay and the thanklessness of most of their charges, they have what many people would consider to be an awesome career.  And in order to be 'on tap' for their parishoners, they need some pretty serious relationship with God on a continual basis; they never know what they'll be doing in the run of any given day and it takes a lot of spiritual energy.  The more passionate they are about this kind of living, the more they want to see others experiencing it - starting with the members of their congregation.  Because - face it - that kind of 24/7 spirituality is an amazing adventure.  

The rest of us ... aren't there ... or we're only partway there.  We are not ALL called into full-time ministry.  Some of us are bricklayers. Some of us are office workers. Some are nurses, teachers, retailers. Some work nights. Sundays.  Some commute; some of those carpool. And the one thing we all have in common is that our whole lives DON'T center on the church. We rub shoulders with the world up close and personal. The demands of our jobs take us places that - at times - no human spirit should have to endure.  In a sense, it's harder for us to make the time for spiritual things and in some cases, it's a miracle we have any time at all to devote to relationship with God.  

Yet the elephant in the room is still there ... there's that "Be transformed" thing.  And as responsible as pastors and teachers feel about us, in the final analysis, we can't hold them responsible.  Each of us has to be accountable for his or her own choices.  Including this one.  

Might I suggest a few thoughts about transformation?  I realize that I don't have the theological training of a Bible college or anything, but I've been living this Christian life since 1976 and studying the Word just as long.  And it seems to me that what is being touted as a weekend-retreat thing really is an every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life thing. 

Transformation starts with a choice - followed by a whole bunch of other choices.  Each has a ripple effect.  The Bible says for us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  We know how this is accomplished - or we are taught it: read the Bible, pray every day, like that.  I tend to think that it goes way deeper than just that.  

Having gone through a mental renewing the last three years in one major area of my life, which is still sending out ripples into other areas, I know that I don't have the strength to renew my mind.  I absolutely don't.  I tried for many years to do it on my own and I failed Every Single Time.  Any success I did have was temporary at best, followed inevitably by 'pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization'.  The cycle was so discouraging, so depressing.  

Finally - about three years ago - someone clued me in to something I probably should have known a long time ago; after all, when I was in University I had a taste of it because I was SO out of my element that I HAD to depend on God for Every Single Thing ... of course, that was a lifetime ago (to be specific, my kids' lifetime). I used to blame my kids for taking that away from me. Now I don't.  I can see that I was the one making those choices to live the Christian life my own way, little by little.

The message that finally came through to me?  "YOU CAN'T."  

That's one side of the coin.  The other side says, "GOD CAN."  So the majority of my own renewal, and from that, transformation, came from me ceasing from trying to be God in my life and control it all - and turning everything over, a moment at a time, a day at a time, to Him and let HIM own it.  

And that is where those verses in Romans 12 come in.  There's where the renewal takes place - and it is slow.  Painfully slow.  But ... He's way better at managing it than I ever was.  The only thing I can do is to give it to Him. That's it.  I can do absolutely NOTHING on my own.  I can't change anything about my life - can't change other people, can't change circumstances, can't even change myself.  There - I've said it.  I am totally Powerless.  

Any transformation that takes place is His doing.  And I'll admit it, sometimes I take the wheel and try to run things on my own - on "autopilot" - and He has been given my permission to allow things to crash and burn when I do.  And they do - big time!  I usually try to run things when I get impatient because things aren't happening fast enough.  I stew and complain to God.  And He reminds me - through something someone says or does, through a song, or just in one of those 'little Voice' moments I hear in my heart from time to time - that the human body takes seven years to completely replace its cells.  So the results of an inner transformation might take some time to show up in my life.  It's okay - God's in charge of this.  And that - after all the anguish I put myself through trying to be Him - is such a relief.