Saturday, May 30, 2015

...it happens

A friend of mine is going through a very trying time lately.

There are the family tensions that sometimes occur when a new generation makes choices the older one wouldn't; that is to be expected at times. 

But this is more. 

Two family members from opposite generations (a grown child and an aged parent) are both in hospital for various reasons. Both are fighting for their lives; one has had surgery and the other is facing it. It leaves my friend (and most anyone) grappling with the same questions Job faced - if God is good, why am I suffering? Why do horrible things happen to people who are putting God first? 

I've heard the platitudes flying thick and fast, and here's the thing about platitudes: they're only true to a certain point ... and they do not allow for people to experience the pain of what they are going through. 

It's harder to say nothing and just hug a person than it is to resort to pithy, sometimes sappy statements that are aimed at fixing the person's feelings. The problem with that is this: people feel what they feel. They NEED to feel what they feel. Trying to take that away from people is counterproductive.

Especially unhelpful is the tendency to use Scripture in that way. I can't count the number of times people have quoted Romans 8:28 to me... trying to tell me that everything will work out fine because God will take the bad and make it turn out good. And while there is a sense in which this can be true (and might I say 'not necessarily' because what has happened, has happened) it is not the full intent of the passage, because it is often quoted without verse 29: "For those whom God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..." The two verses taken together tell us that the "good" that God causes all things to work together for is actually not the "good" that we think, but rather, it is being transformed into the image of Jesus. 

Photo "Father And Daughter" by
David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net
And it doesn't say that God is causing the bad thing that has happened. It says that IN all things, good and bad (as we interpret them) God weaves together and causes the Good (of being transformed into Jesus' likeness) to happen in our lives. This is different from the 'everything happens for a reason' sentiment ... which is another of those two-dimensional sayings I've heard from the time I was very young. 

A "reason" implies intention. God does not INTEND for tragedies to happen. 

They. just. happen. 

However, He can and will use anything ... ANYTHING ... to achieve His goal - to love us into looking more and more like our co-regent, Jesus.  Why? because He knows better than anyone that the only way for us to be supremely happy is to live the way that Jesus did, in total dependence on His Spirit, feeling the full gamut of human emotion, yes, and knowing that He is leading us even when we don't "sense" it.

When we go through hard times, when we face tragedy, our first inclination is to hide our faces, to run away, to curl into a fetal position and rock, to cover our eyes or our ears and shut down. But He calls - and His call is like a trusted parent - or friend, if that works better for some folks - pulling our hands away from our faces and encouraging us to look into His eyes, to remember that "He's got this." He so longs for us to remember that He cares, that He feels our pain, that He understands our grief, that He knows what it is to be rejected. 

He really does. His arms are open wide, inviting us to come nearer.

When we, in the midst of our anguish, respond to that invitation and choose to look into His eyes, His presence transforms us - little by little. His love and light infuse us with comfort and peace. He strengthens us when we feel the weakest and most vulnerable. He catches us when we fall. There is no judgment, no reprimand; He just says, "Here, let Me hold you up. Let Me carry that for you. Let Me handle that; it's too heavy. Rest here in My arms."  

There is no shame in that. There is no need to feel like we are "less than" ... when we are in need of help, it is available to us. It is ALWAYS available. 

Yes, "...it happens."  But that is okay, because "...it" didn't take Him by surprise. 

And He's not going anywhere. 
Count on it.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Higher

The last while, I've felt the weight of so many things pressing down on me. I've been juggling responsabilities at work, at home, with extended family, with my own health, with banks and doctors and insurance companies and more, concerned about friends and situations and so many changes in all of those areas that slowly, I've become overwhelmed. 

I didn't realize that this is what had happened until a dear friend put his finger on it this morning during a pre-service prayer time. I have been carrying around a LOT of things, and to top it all off, there's now my schooling to add to the mix. 

When I get right down to it, I could knuckle down and push harder, struggle fruitlessly against more than a dozen things that wear away at me ... or I could rest my whole person, my whole weight, on the One who is already holding me up. And He is holding all those other things too; I just need to remember that I can let go of them because HE HAS GOT ME, SO HE HAS GOT THEM TOO. 

If my problem is worry, or a lack of faith, and I try NOT to worry or I try to drum up more faith, I WILL FAIL.  HE provides that faith through His love for me. His love is the answer.

It's always the answer. His love is the higher spiritual plane, the updraft that catches my wings and lifts me. 

If my problem is forgiveness (forgiving someone), and I TRY to forgive, I WILL FAIL.  HE freely forgave me AND that person, and His love will conquer all those objections and teach me that it's okay to accept someone even if that person is hurting me ... or themselves ... or someone I love. His love will ALWAYS triumph.

If my problem is concern over so many that I love who are in need of a miracle in their lives, I am powerless to help them.  HE is watching them even more closely than I can, and HE will work out all things according to His plan - for HE LOVES THEM. 

And He loves ME. 
 It's not some abstract thing. It's HIM. HIM. Jesus. His Person. His Spirit. 

Photo "Peregrine Falcon" by
Tom Curtis at
www.freedigitalphotos.net
It's HIS love that rescues, heals, restores, and illuminates the darkest corners, the most hopeless situations.  It's HIS love that swoops down and scoops me up to the heights, takes my breath away with His wild-at-heart goodness, like Tarzan saving Jane from the jaguar, and like Aslan saving Eustace from his dragon-skin (in CS Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawntreader), the dragon-skin being a symbol of human nature.

The longer I've been a Christian, the more deeply I am aware of how little power I have of my own, and how desperately I need His immeasurable strength, the power of His Spirit, filling me up, overflowing from me.

There are so many voices shouting in my ear to listen to them. These voices harangue me, beat me down, chew me up and spit me out, tie me in so many knots that I am so sure that there is no way out of my predicament. 

Then I hear His voice. It doesn't shout. Not at first, not until I learn to recognize it better. Jesus whispers His tender love to me, softly in my spiritual ears, into my brokenness, into my heart which has been so buffeted by twists of fate, billows of the consequences of my (and others') actions, and whirlwinds of circumstance. 

He murmurs, ... and I wonder sometimes if it's Him or if my mind is playing tricks on me. But it's Him. He calls me to rest - calls me to peace, not to turmoil and uncertainty. He asks me to reach out my hand - a simple act of willingness - and He takes it from there. He leads me, gently, by a series of nudges, little whispers ... and when I follow them, I (and others) are always better off.

He Himself is the invisible road to go Higher. It's nothing I have done or ever could do. HE has done it all. HIS LOVE is supreme. There is nothing else. 

There doesn't need to be.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Author and Finisher

In my last post, "Sacred Cows," I talked about how we compartmentalize and become very protective of those things in our lives that we consider "ours" ... when God's plan is to smash down the dividing walls that separate our relationship with Him from the rest of our lives. 

If, by reading that post, anyone might have thought how vigilant WE need to be, how we need to repent and confess our sinfulness to God, etc., let me be clear. 

Yes, knowing about where we may have been missing the mark can be helpful because at least now we are aware and can listen to and recognize His voice a bit better. But it is GOD who began this new creation. He is the Author of our New Life. And it is HE who will direct the path of our lives so that we bump right smack dab into Him, time and time again. HE will finish the work He started. 

The only thing we need to open our eyes to .... is Him. His passionate Love. His boundless Grace. His endless Patience. His supreme Sufficiency. 

Photo "Daily Planner With Pen" by
BrandonSigma at
www.freedigitalphotos.net
HE wrote the Book. Not only the Book we hold in our hands but also the Book of our lives. HE knows how it turns out. HE made provision for it, for us, for every possible outcome or circumstance. Nothing we have done or ever will do, will EVER take Him by surprise. Nothing we have done or ever will do, will change His constant, unconditional love for us - it won't make Him love us any less ... or any more ... than He always has for all eternity - past, present and future. 

It was HE who conceived the plan of salvation, in Eternity Past, before He even spoke the words, "Let there be light." It was HE who chose us in Him (Jesus, Himself) before the foundation of the world, planned for us (through Jesus) to be holy and without blame before Him (Eph. 1:4,5). At the Cross (and from Ages before the world began) God made Jesus, the Sinless One, to be our sin (ALL our sin: past, present and future) so that He could restore to us the glory we lost in Eden - the righteousness of God - in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). Not to condemn us to a life of slavery (touch not, taste not, handle not - Col. 2:21) but to free us from it (Gal. 5:1). Forgiveness is ours; we don't need to ask for it - it is OURS! He has broken down the walls between us and Him, and will continue to break them down within us so that EVERY aspect of our lives feels the warmth of His presence.

And we? we get to go along for the Ride. He is the conductor, He is the train, and He is the fuel; we are passengers. There is nothing that we can do to guarantee our arrival at destination (that's already been done for us too, see Phil. 1:6). Everything has been planned for, set up, started, is being maintained just fine, and will finish because HE has willed it so. 

We can relax. We can rest in His amazing, all-pervasive love. We can open ourselves to Him, knowing that only a great and supreme Love would reach down and translate us from darkness to light BECAUSE HE CHOSE TO. That's how much He loves. That's how much He plans for us, stays with us, and lavishes His Holy Spirit within each of us. 

There is nothing to prove. 
HE has done it all; HE will finish it all. 
Period.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Sacred Cows

It's really easy as humans to compartmentalize. What I mean is that we tend to file portions or aspects of our lives into comfortable little boxes that we take out and play with (or use, if you like) according to the label that's on them. 

We have a box we label 'work'. We have another one named 'church' and another called 'home.' But we have so many more. There's what we like to do in our leisure time, there's our political involvement or beliefs, there's what TV programs we watch, what music we listen to, what our lifestyle is, what loyalties we hold to any kind of sports or pop idol, and the list is endless. 

And these boxes have very little (if any) overlap. 
And this can be a problem. 

If we are believers, there's an important box called our relationship with God. Within it, there are a number of other boxes: the church part including doctrines we hold, people we associate with, styles of music and preaching, programs we espouse, and ministries we support. Then there's the devotional/relationship part which might include prayer and reading the Word. We like to keep things in their proper place ... and it's all usually very tidy .... until it's not. Until God starts doing something radical and taking those little religious boxes out and destroying them, and tearing down the walls between the relationship with God box and the other boxes in our lives. 

Photo "Big Brahman Bull Isolated On A
White Background"
courtesy
of Gualberto107 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net
I've watched people who love God actually destroy their testimony, ruin their Christian reputation, fighting and treating one another shamefully over which football team will win the Superbowl. Or what hockey team will win the Stanley cup. I've seen people irreparably damaged by political party affiliation, fighting over whether to vote this way or that way, trying to Christianize their reasons and causing deep wounds that are impossible to heal - over something as not-worth-arguing-about as politics. Or property. Or what foods to eat or not eat. Or whether to home-school, Christian-school, or public school their children.

Seriously.

In India, you can't go very far without seeing - or almost bumping into - cows. They're everywhere. The Indian people don't believe in harming the animals, and so cows are allowed to go anywhere they want, lie down anywhere they feel like it, and the Indians just go around them. The cow is a source of milk, butter, cheese, fuel (yes, they burn cow manure as fuel!), and some religious rituals or cultural customs in India, but they are not killed. Take away an Indian's civil rights but no, don't touch the cows. 

And in many ways, I see some believers acting that way about their own sacred cows: Yes God, I'll go to church but not during Downtown Abbey (or whatever the name of it is). Sure, Lord, I'll give my ten percent but don't ask me to not watch the playoffs (I'll just watch the game on my phone while I'm at church, how's that?) I'll even go to the church potluck but for goodness' sake, don't expect me to eat bread ... as a matter of fact, I'll go and I will try to convince people how unhealthy all this food they're eating is for them. WHILE they're eating it.

That defensiveness can even affect the things we do that we consider "of God." Once, when I remarked to someone that a certain popular book, used as a devotional aid at the time, was teaching heresy, that person pouted and asked me not to take that away from her. Not, "What things specifically don't line up with the scriptures?" but just a "Don't touch my sacred cow." 

Jesus came to make us free, to deliver us from bondage to our sacred cows. 

He came to take a sledgehammer to those boxes, those compartments in our lives that I spoke about earlier. His design for our lives is "open concept" - because to Him, all of life is sacred: whether it's home life or school life or work life or church life or hobby life or sports life or music life or fashion life or food life.... you get the idea. And if what He has done does not reach into that little corner we've been keeping just for ourselves, then it is not so much a reflection on His power as it is a commentary on how very little we appreciate all that He has freely given to us out of the abundance of His love!

I've heard it said that if Jesus is not Lord OF ALL then He is not Lord AT ALL. There is a sense in which this may well be true. However, I'm more inclined to believe that our entire Christian existence is a journey ... a journey toward trust... based on His love for us. The more we realize how real and deep that love is, the more we trust Him. The more we trust Him, the more we relinquish to Him; the more we relinquish to Him, the more He looks after our needs and we realize the depth of His love and care for us; the more He lovingly looks after our needs, the more we trust Him.

It doesn't have to get more complicated than that.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

And I Hid

The Lie did not seem that false when they reached for the fruit. It made sense. After all, the serpent wasn't dead, and HE touched the fruit. (Never mind that this was not even what the commandment was; it was to not EAT it!) The deceiver crept among the branches of the tree, taunting them for their naiveté, mocking their trust in the goodness of God. 

It wasn't the punishment of death that they noticed first, after eating together. It was ... something else. Something had changed. 

Something important. 

Their glory was gone. That light which bathed them constantly, which emanated from them, that holy glow that they didn't even have to work at - that was gone. For the first time, they felt exposed. 

Afraid. 

Afraid of punishment. 

They wanted desperately to be covered with that glory they once had, the glory that had disappeared like the morning dew, as if it had a mind of its own. 

Did they ask the One who gave it to restore it to them? No, for they had believed the Lie - the Lie that He was not good. That He was holding out on them. Their ENTIRE PERSPECTIVE was tainted by it. Instead of running to embrace Him, they sought to create in their own power what God had provided for them automatically: a covering. They searched out the leaves, strong leaves they had helped to dress and to tend in the Garden - sewed them together with thin strips of stem. They made aprons ... thinking that the things they had dressed and kept would now keep and dress them.

It didn't work. And they hid. 

They hid. It was their choice to walk away from the only source of life, to hide their false belief and their warped faith, warped to now include things that they tried to do to appease His wrath, and hope that He wouldn't notice, that He wouldn't kill them.

But He still loved them. He didn't come to kill them; he came looking for them.

He found them. There was nowhere they could hide, nothing they could do or say to change how their view of Him had changed.They were convinced He would be angry, that this death that was promised was still to come. They didn't realize that it had already happened. The death of believing God was mean and unfair had taken their glory away. Their hearts had died.

Adam's voice somehow found expression and tells the whole sad episode in just a few words. "I was afraid, because I was exposed, so I hid." 

Photo "Spring Lamb" by Tina Phillips at
www.freedigitalphotos.net
After they understood the ramifications of their choice, God promised them that He would mount a rescue mission, that the Lie would no longer come between them. And He showed them - in true "God" fashion - that what they manufactured was never going to be enough, that it was He and He alone who could cover them: He took away their man-made clothing and gave them pelts to wear. 

And He gave them hope. He pointed forward to a time when the seed of the woman would come and be bruised by the serpent - but that in so doing, He would crush the Liar's head. He took the serpent's legs away from him ... perhaps as a reminder to the humans that relationships based on lies don't go anywhere. 

And He planned and prepared in love for them, within the boundaries of the curse they had brought upon themselves. 

As a demonstration of His mercy, He sent a guardian to stand sentinel over the tree of everlasting Life and protect them from tasting from it again, for what indescribable hell could it be for humans - whose glory had departed - to live forever, separated in this fashion from Him? 

"And I hid." So many people are still hiding from the only One who can make a difference in their lives, who can take away that shame, reinstate that glory. Jesus the Lamb of God has now made that way, mounted that rescue mission He promised all the way back in Genersis 3:15, rescued us all as He hung suspended between Heaven and Earth, took away the sin problem ... and we are still hiding in the bushes and sewing together ornate fig aprons. 

He still searches. He still calls. He still cries out. The Lamb has taken away your sin, my sin. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. The sin is gone. It's gone. It's completely GONE. The Liar is crushed. God the Father has prevailed. We don't need to hide any more. We don't need to sew our own coverings around us. HE has covered us. HE has rescued us. HE has become the problem and in doing so, has eradicated it with His goodness, with His love. 

We are made right, holy, and pure; we have been given back the glory of a heart fully alive.*

Step out of the bushes.



*Recommended reading: John Eldredge, Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive, (c) 2003 Thomas Nelson Publishing .