One more night - with what?

"When do you want me to ask God to remove the plague of frogs?" asked Moses.

"Tomorrow," Pharaoh replied.

What?  Let me get this straight - you have slimy, disgusting frogs in your bed, frogs in your breakfast muesli, frogs all over the floor and in your cooking utensils, you can't walk two feet without stepping on or kicking aside a frog - and you want to spend another night with them?

Ludicrous!

Found this photo HERE

What was that all about anyway?  Why tell Moses you want to spend another night with those revolting things crawling all over you?

Frogs are fine - in their place: in the water. Some of them are actually quite pretty.  But that doesn't mean I'd want them infesting everything I owned. 

So what was behind Pharaoh's bizarre desire to spend another night with the frogs? Why would anyone want to do that?

It's the illusion (or should I say the delusion) of control. I, like so many people, like to think that i have control over my own life.  And my innate selfishness dictates that if I can convince myself that I have control over things, they will not be the master of me.  Even if they are.  It's the same argument when I know that (let's say) overeating is bad for me. It makes me feel gross, I eat until I'm in pain and then I groan for hours afterward.  

Yet what do I do the next time? I do it again. And again. And when I think about portion control and healthy food choices and being more active ... I plan to do it "next week." Or "the first of next month." Or "after Christmas." It's the delusion of control. I can't face the fact that I can't do it on my own, so I put off the painful process of facing that fact until another day.  Same as stubborn old Pharaoh.  

It's become a stock joke between my husband and me. "Um, when are you going to _____?" (Answer - next week, next month, whatever).  "Hmm. Gonna spend another night with the frogs, huh?"  And we both laugh, because we both know the uncomfortable truth - the status quo is preferable to the pain of change, even change for the better ... and we both want to believe that we have the power over when, how, and for how long that change occurs. Next week becomes next month, next month becomes after Christmas... and the thing that stands in the way is fear ... and ego.  I've heard it said that EGO stands for Edging God Out.

That sounds about right. 

So am I going to put off until next week what I know I should have faced weeks ago? Or do I want to spend another night with the frogs?

Death of an atheist

I first met Ted (not his real name) at a 12-step group that met in someone's home.  He sat, defiant, beaten by alcohol for decades but unwilling to embrace steps 2 and 3 of AA: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and We turned our will and our lives over to the care of God... 

Image from this site

He had tried every trick in the book to get sober without "the God thing."  Nothing worked.  He'd lived a hard-drinking, hard-living life, filled with booze, drugs, women, you name it. His salesman's life had taken him far and wide; he was used to living in hotels and using every mood-altering substance he could. Now he was in his sixties and even more adamant that there was no God.  He had a spite against the church so wide, you could see it written all over him.  SOMEONE (and I suspect many, MANY someones) had hurt him so very badly in the church and he had written the whole Christianity thing completely off - it was ludicrous to him.  He saw the judgmental, self-righteous attitudes of any church people he had ever been in contact with, the small-minded, religious, cliquish, rules-based and narrow lives each of them led, and wanted nothing whatsoever to do with that.  And he'd tarred God with the same brush as those who said they believed in Him.

Now the guy leading this group was saying that in order to get and stay sober, he had to believe in the God he had for so very long resisted as being the source of the behavior of these horrible people - and not only that - to give his will and his life to Him?  No.  Ted argued, he disputed, he got red in the face and it looked like he was going to physically attack this guy.  I think the only thing that kept him in his seat was the fact that the forty-something man he was so angry at ... could whip him (but good) in a fight.  

So he left.  He "went back out" as they say in recovery rooms.  He went on yet another drinking spree that left him nearly destitute, beaten into desperation by the consequences of his choices.  And like a moth to a candle flame, he was again seated in our little group. 

But he wasn't saying much.  

One night, one of our number spoke up and told his story, the story of someone who had a real hatred of God and of His people, a victim of physical and religious abuse, hypocrisy, and abandonment all in the name of God.  He told how he finally came to the end of himself and in desperation cried out for God to either kill him or cure him.  And that was the beginning of a rather uneasy but successful end to his drinking career and the beginning of a relationship with the Creator not based on hypocrisy and religion but based on truth and honesty.

Ted's face was a study in conflicting emotions.  After the meeting ended, he approached this fellow and said, "Would it be okay if I called you sometime?" The man agreed, perplexed.  Everyone there knew Ted's hostile attitude toward all things religious.  And now he was wanting to talk to someone who freely admitted that relationship with God was the only way.  

Over the course of the next few months, after heart-to-heart talks over coffee, going through the shakes, the jitters and the intolerable cravings and being able to talk about them frankly and openly with his chosen mentor (and with others of the same ilk), after long walks and talks with God about anything and everything - this God to whom he referred as "The Old Man" because he couldn't bring himself to say the word, "God" - Ted grew into a personal relationship with his Creator.  It was like watching a baby being born - miraculous, raw, delicate, new.  His life was transformed! Every facet of it burgeoned with Life.  Everything was so fresh, so vibrant, so .... passionate.  Every bit of passion with which he had hated the church and (by association) God, was now funneled into loving Him, developing relationship with Him.  His whole demeanor exuded peace and joy.  God had truly touched his life.  

The atheist had died.  A believer was born.

He even started attending a church, but more out of a desire to please God than any other thing, like social expectation. He got - and stayed - sober.  He became everything that everyone knew that he could be if only he would let God love him: a better person, a better husband, a better father.  And he was so refreshingly honest about his journey.  He'd talk about it to people, to newcomers in our group, who would listen to him because he knew what it was like.  He knew how it felt to be that hopeless, that disillusioned, to not know what this God-thing was all about.  He told them it was okay to have doubts, but if they'd just be honest with God and start talking to Him, they'd see a difference in their lives.  He was a walking miracle - he was living proof that God could do anything with anyone who would give Him a real honest chance.  And folks knew it.

One night, after his usual long walk back to his hotel room, talking with "The Old Man" the whole way, he felt very tired, so he laid down in his bed without taking his street clothes off.  

The cleaning staff found him the next day just like that.  His heart had given out.  He was gone.

We, like many others in our little band, questioned the goodness and the love of a God who would take him from his family and his friends so soon after getting his life squared away, restored, renewed. What kind of cruel joke was this, we wondered.  We missed him; we missed his ready smile, his willing heart, his generous spirit. We still do.  But we had to accept that he was immensely happy where he was, marveling in his new-found everlasting life.  Some of us did accept this, and we were able to move on.  Others ... didn't. 

Now, several months after his death, I'm even more convinced of what I was in the beginning, when he first passed away.  He was taken from us while he was still unspoiled by religion.  If he had gotten any further into the western church, any church, any denomination, he would never have survived. The rules that so many rely on to try to keep people in line would have begun to make themselves known, to hem him in, to dissect his passion (apparently a dangerous thing in religious circles because it can't be controlled) and render it powerless. The pettiness, the hypocrisy that had hurt him in the past was (and is) still rampant.  It was only a matter of time before he realized it and his faith - tenuous and fragile that it was - would have been shaken.  And he would have "gone back out" again to reject his Creator and drink himself into his grave, another sad statistic.  I'm as sure of it as I know my own name. 

So I'm not angry at God anymore for taking Ted when He did.  I miss him, yes.  I really miss him.  But I know that he's happier now than he ever was - and that he left this world in an untainted, intimate love-relationship with "The Old Man" that leaves mine in the dust. 

Yes, it was a little rough around the edges.  Yes, he had a lot to learn. (Or did he?)  Be that as it may, I can tell you that with all that is in me, there are times that I pray for God to make me more like him.  Not like the ones that are so bound up in the shoulds and oughtas that they drive people away in droves - but more like Ted, who just learned to love and be loved, completely, honestly, warts and all.

Dead Heads

My gaze fell on the lilac bush in our yard as we left to go somewhere a few days ago.  "Oh.  While I'm thinking of it, those dead heads on the lilac bush will have to be pruned off." 

My husband turned to me briefly as he drove.  "Why?"

"There were a few left on there the previous year, and I noticed that we didn't have as many blooms this year as we should have.  They won't grow back if the flowers have gone to seed and stay there until the next spring."  

"Oh.  Okay," he responded, and the topic turned to other things.

I recalled that conversation when I was out on the deck this morning and heard the snip, snip, snip of the pruning shears as he cut off those lilac dead heads. Bless him! 

Dead heads.  Past productivity.  Last year's blooms don't mean this year's buds.  It's a simple lesson.  

But how many times do I rest on my laurels and think I've arrived, that I can coast, that I don't have to 'press in' - at least not with as much intensity as before?  How many times have I focused on the result of the relationship between me and God, and forgotten that it's the relationship that did it and that it's the relationship itself that must be maintained as if no results had ever been produced? 

Ouch.  That isn't a comfortable truth is it.  It's based on a much deeper truth, one that Jesus put His finger on many years ago: "Without Me, you can do nothing." (John 15)  Not, "you can do most stuff but I have to do the rest," or even, "you can only do a few things."  Nothing.  Zero.  Nada!!  

I like to think that I am capable of doing certain things on my own.  But the truth of the matter is that even the strength to believe, even the belief itself, are gifts that God gives. The breath I breathe, the beating heart, the power of thought - these are gifts. I can take no credit for them. So why do I think that I have any power over anything?  

That's the illusion isn't it...?  I have learned certain skills in the course of my life and I know how to apply those skills to achieve a desired outcome.  And it is that which deludes me into thinking that I can do it with everything.  But ... I can't.  Especially as it pertains to producing the fruit of the Spirit in my life: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness, kindness... all those and more. 

I think that it was brilliant that Paul likened the development of those qualities in believers to fruit. Fruit come from blossoms.  They can't produce themselves.  They grow out of the living plant - symbol of the long-term relationship between a believer and God. Nurtured by the sun (the Son), water (the Holy Spirit) constantly, continually flowing through the tree, a healthy tree will produce fruit.  Naturally.  It doesn't have to grunt, strain, and work up the fruit.  It just comes.  

The most amazing believers I have known in my life have not "tried" to produce that spiritual fruit; it has just been produced as they simply let God love them, let God know them ... the way He so desires.

And once produced - the fruit must be picked, used, taken from the tree.  If trees had feelings, it would seem a little harsh at first glance to rip something that amazing away from them. But if the fruit stays there on the trees ... it. will. rot.  And no fruit will be produced there until the old fruit is removed. The usefulness of the tree will be reduced. Often, in the wild, the best fruit are produced the year following a wild autumn or winter storm that sends the fruit flying from the branches.  From the pain of loss, loss of what has already come and gone, and served its purpose in our lives - new growth can happen.

Just like with dead heads.  

Fresh fruit, fresh blossoms.  Every year. Every season. No holding back.  No self-recriminations for dry times. It is what it is. Drink in the Holy Spirit, bask in the Son, lift your branches high to the Father. He will take care of the rest, the production of leaves, flowers, fruit (as He sees fit); others will see, will feast, will rest in your shade, will breathe in your fragrance.


Dedicated to a dear friend, Agnes Hawbolt, who passed away yesterday to be with the Lover of her soul.

Fabricated faith

I remember the fairy tale of The Emperor's New Clothes.  Often.  Half the time I remember it, I've just left a church service where some well-meaning but misled person has called people to "have more faith" in order to get something from God - a healing, the resolution to an impossible problem, a financial miracle, whatever the case may be.

I don't deny that it's important to employ faith in our lives.  I don't deny that without faith it is impossible to please God. 

But there is no such thing as a faith factory or an assurance assembly-line. It can't be manufactured.  It can't be faked. It is not the product of human effort. 

I absolutely detest the popular phrase, "Fake it 'til you make it."  The idea behind it is that you "act as if" something you want (whether healing, or whatever the miracle you want, or the quality that you wish you had) is actually yours.  It isn't.  "Act as if" essentially means "Pretend."  In other words, "Lie."  

Lie to yourself - go ahead, everybody does it. (Seriously?) That doesn't jive with another term that I have come to depend on far more: "rigorous honesty."  

The way to get more faith is NOT to act as though you already have it.  The way to GET it is by admitting you DON'T have it.  And then you ASK for it.  Because, as Ephesians 2:8 so clearly points out, "... faith [is] not of yourselves." It's not self-produced; it's a divine gift... the same way grace is, the same way relationship with God is.  He takes the initiative, gives the grace AND the faith to believe.... why? so that NOT ONE of us can boast and say, "It was because I believed so much, that this miracle happened."  The truth is, it was because God decided to do it, that it happened. If we used the faith He gave us to ask for whatever it was, then we didn't cause it to happen.  We got to watch Him work; He gave us that privilege too.

This illustration from a modern version of
Andersen's tale - HERE

Faith doesn't come from a factory.  It is not man-made.  It is organic; it is life, and God is its source. It can't be manufactured.  It can't be fabricated. (Interesting fact: the word "fabrication" is another term for "falsehood" or a story invented by a human to cover up his or her nakedness.  Exactly like the Emperor's New Clothes.) 

In the well-known Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the sheisters came in to the king's court, and offered to make a unique suit of clothing for the emperor.  They pretended to have fabric so special that only wise people could see it.  Of course they had nothing - and everyone who saw them pantomime their creation doubted himself or herself, right on up to the emperor himself. Nobody could see anything; everyone was scared to admit it.  It took a child to point out that what these fake tailors had made was fabricated; it wasn't real at all!  Only the child had the courage to say, "The Emperor has no clothes!" The misled monarch was parading around in his underwear thinking that he was covered - when he wasn't.  All the faking it in the world wasn't going to help him make it.  The bare truth was there: he had no clothes.

Fabricated faith is what the Pharisees had - and they'd had it so long that they thought it was real!  They faked it all the time!  They put on a big show, did the whole pious act, thought themselves to have "made it."  But Jesus called them "white-washed tombs" - scrubbed meticulously clean on the outside, and full of death and decay on the inside.  If they could have achieved what was necessary by faking it, they would have had it made in the shade. But I kinda think they missed the point entirely - because they ended up killing the Point.  Instead of realizing what they had was fabricated - and getting something real from the Giver of it all - they plugged their ears and kept on in their delusion that they were doing God's will.

The point is that it is not, nor has it ever been about how worthy a person is, or how able a person is to drum up enough faith to twist God's arm into doing something.  It's all about how worthy HE is.  His initiative, His plan, His grace, His faith, His salvation, His perseverance, His love. 

We just get to go along for the ride.
:D

Spiritual Superstars

I have what I call spidey-senses.  I don't know if anyone else does - probably so, although they'd call it something different - but when my mind tells me that I'm in danger, I feel a tingling, a prickling inside, something that tells me things are not right, that there's something to be avoided or stopped, that I need to watch it or I'll get hurt.  Or that something is just plain wrong with the whole situation. 

I get it when I feel like I'm being watched.  Or when I walk into a crowd of people (I have demophobia) - or when I hear some dude on the TV talking about the end of the world and starting to set specific dates and knowing that people are going to actually believe that nonsense and send the guy money!! 

My spidey-senses also tingle when I hear people talk about this or that spiritual leader as if there is some sort of special, one-of-a-kind gift this person has.  The statement, "We need to have this person come here or we need to go where he or she is, in order for God to work in our lives (or in our church)," makes my skin crawl.  It implies that the person talking thinks that this 'gifted' person has some kind of corner on God's presence, that ordinary people like us can't get in touch with Him.  

I remember our pastor warning us about this mentality a couple of years back - this "clergy vs laity" idea that is insidious in our religion (and by religion I mean man-made rules)-based church culture.  This is the idea that the clergy (or those 'gifted' people) have the call and the anointing of God on their lives and that the laity (or the rest of us) don't.  The outflow of such a belief is that the laity sits back and lets the clergy do the work of preaching, visiting the sick, and so forth (thus leading to high levels of burnout in the ministry) - all the while thinking only the clergy is qualified to do what God wants done. It also tends to arrogance in the clergy and in laziness (starting to believe the accolades of men), and to subservience and the "herd mentality" in the laity - which inevitably leads to disillusionment when the leader or the "gifted one" inevitably falls into scandal.

Got this picture HERE

I've been speculating about the source of this mentality.  I believe it's a basic insecurity about some folks' ability to have a vital relationship with God that is what's behind this tendency they have to think that this or that person has a "revival anointing" or "prophetic ministry" or "healing ministry."  Or whatever.  

Perhaps it's "Old Testament" thinking - where God's presence seemed to rest on one particular person for a specific period of time for a certain task.  

But when the New Testament came along - that is, when Jesus brought in the New Way and the Holy Spirit became accessible to all believers... every believer not only has the potential but actually IS a priest.  IS a saint.  IS a child of God - not just in the generic sense but in the adoptive sense (the adoption papers signed in blood at Calvary and sealed at the bodily resurrection of Jesus!) 

It is part of human nature to want to fixate on something we can see, on someone we can see, rather than to have a relationship with Someone we can't see.  That's why the human race, in the journey of faith, has always had its superstars: Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah, the apostles, and so forth - but these people would have been the first to admit that it had nothing to do with their abilities or their "giftedness" that they were instruments in God's hand to accomplish His work.  No, they'd more likely say that it was God's choice, and God's initiative, not theirs.  That they were just ordinary people and the real extraordinary Person was God Himself.  That anyone could have that relationship with God - and be just as much an instrument in His hand, and that it doesn't take greatness to do that. 

It takes a realization of HIS greatness.  An understanding that HE is the only True Superstar.  That people are merely people, and as such, fallible.  I can respect the office someone holds, yes.  I can recognize that ministers or church leaders have a responsibility before God to watch over me and to give account of their own actions concerning me.  But it doesn't mean that I put them up on pedestals and assume that they have "the goods" and I don't.  Or that I can only fly with the assistance of their spiritual superstar cape. 

From the very beginning of human history, God has invited humans into relationship with Him - even in the time of Moses, that was His original plan.  But the people didn't want that.  They wanted God to speak to Moses and MOSES to speak to them.  They were afraid of that kind of all-pervasive intimacy.  

Am I?  Am I afraid that if I were to embrace God the way He so desires, that I would be consumed? Do I believe it's safer to ride someone else's coattails into His presence?  

Am I willing to worship and to serve only the True Superstar?