The Dividing Line

For the last few decades, but especially the last four-plus years, I've watched it with growing alarm. Otherwise wonderful people, committed Christians, good-living, God-fearing individuals, are fighting and losing friendships and even relationships with family members - now even in public fora like social media - about things that (to my way of thinking) should not even be an issue.  Politics.  Doctrine.  Human rights. 

Seriously?  When Jesus said that He came to bring division in Luke 12:51, He wasn't talking about these kinds of obsessions. He was talking about the simplicity of the Good News.  He was talking about Himself, about the Scandalon (the stumbling stone) of the Gospel. He was predicting family members turning each other in (in other words, turning in believing family members), ratting on them to the authorities because of their own lack of belief in Him. 

As for those who are fellow-believers, Jesus prayed in John 17 that they would be united - that they would be as united with each other and with Him as He was with the other members of the Trinity. Not in the sense that we all believe the same way about the same things, but in the sense of loving and accepting each other the way we are, in spite of our differences in thought or method. 

He said nothing of external politics. He said nothing of believers hating and bullying one another over piffling little details that mean nothing. 

Photo "Girls Looking At Each Other" courtesy of Stuart Miles
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

The dividing lines that I've noticed lately have been whether this or that leader is the right one for our respective countries. Or whether women should or should not preach. Or whether someone is white or a person of colour and whether that matters. Or whether certain people should be allowed to fall in love with each other and get married. Or whether people do or do not have the right to identify as male or female, or other. Or whether climate change does or does not exist. Each side -by and large - uses scripture as a weapon against the other.

Again I say, SERIOUSLY??

Ever since the dawn of humanity, there have been differences of opinion. And there will continue to be differences of opinion. Trump, Trudeau, democracy, socialism, feminism, etc., etc. Pick a topic, and someone has at least one opinion about it.  I even know someone who has three opinions on just about everything, and who will argue with herself without even anyone there in the room with her! 

But all these differences of opinion -- especially if we are believers -- are opportunities to show love to each other rather than excuses to fight one another. Otherwise, we poison our own testimony. And the cause of Christ suffers.

The world sees us fighting one another, putting one another down publicly, making fun of each other, and so forth, and what is the first thing they think? "If that's what being a 'Christian' is, I want no part of it."  And they are perfectly justified in saying so. Some believers, wanting no part of what passes for Christianity today, have decided that even though they believe in Jesus, they no longer want to be considered Christian because of the negative image it conjures up.

ENOUGH!! 

I submit another, more deserving, dividing line: a line in the changing sand of the times, so to speak. And I dare each of us to cross it, and to pay attention to the changing times while we do it. That dividing line is LOVE.

Enough with beating each other up over things that won't matter in a hundred years. Enough with trying to look good by making other people look bad. Enough with the martyr mentality (oh look at me, I'm the only one who has it right and you're just making me suffer...). Enough with the siege mentality where it's 'them against us'. Or 'us against them' more accurately....whoever "them" is! Most likely, it's usually the current villain in the crusader-mindset of religious folks: anyone that doesn't look like, act like, or think like we do. 

Come on, admit it - we've all done it in one way or another. We find a way to set ourselves apart from other folks. This kind of practice has earned itself the term of "othering" - treating another group of people as "less than" us because of some sort of difference we feel uncomfortable with. So let's step over that line from "othering" to "ANothering" where we love one ANother, bear one ANother's burdens, meet one ANother's needs. It doesn't mean we have to be doormats, but it does mean that we need to accept one ANother the way each of us is. 

And I think that Jesus would do the same. I know He did with me.

The Reason

I see the expression "Jesus is the reason for the season" posted a lot on social media and talked about in groups of friends who share the Christian faith. And I get it. I really do. When my family and I gather on the morning of December 25, the Christmas story is the first thing we focus on before anything else, and we sing Happy Birthday Jesus (or try to - see this link). 

But as we go through the years, we have come to question a lot of the trappings that go with the celebration of Christmas. We understand that December 25th was the date chosen in the early 4th century as "Christ-mass" or "celebration of Christ" by an emperor (Constantine) who wanted Christianity to be the "state religion," and who appropriated the festival of Saturnalia (celebrating the Roman god Saturn, the god of agriculture) to make the transition more palatable. Saturnalia is the pagan holiday, celebrated between December 17 and 24, from which we get our "Christian" tradition of giving gifts, feasting, erecting and decorating an evergreen tree, hanging garlands and wreaths, and using holly branches/berries in decorations.  The lengthening days just after the winter solstice (December 21) meant that many people in ancient times (including the Romans) lit lights (candles and lamps) to welcome the coming Sun.

Photo by Brent Keane from Pexels

Other traditions come from other religious beliefs: the Yule log come from the pagans of Europe, mistletoe comes from the Druids, ivy (used in Christmas decorations in England) is an ancient Roman symbol of the god Bacchus, the god of wine and pleasure, and the modern Santa Claus, thought to be a North American adaptation of the English Father Christmas, had his origins far earlier, in the supreme god Odin from Norse mythology, who is always depicted as an old bearded man in flowing robes. As we know, the Vikings influenced the development of early Anglo-Saxon culture in England.

In addition, the date itself is suspect. It is most likely that Jesus was not born on December 25, or even in the winter. (Yay for no snow!) He was probably born in the early spring, for that is when ancient Hebrew shepherds kept flocks of ewes and lambs outside of Bethlehem, a bedroom community not far from Jerusalem. The lambs were born in late February or early March, and remained with their mothers for the first few weeks in preparation for the Passover feast, so it is likely that Jesus was born in March or April.

Knowing all this means, for me, that I hold the traditions and trappings loosely and that I no longer associate them with the actual celebration of Jesus' birth. Because we have a statutory holiday devoted to the celebration of "Christmas," December 25 is a convenient time for me to remember that God became man, to commemorate His birth, and to spend time with family and friends. Yes, we decorate - but not a whole lot. Yes, we exchange gifts, but we try to make those gifts meaningful expressions of love instead of an obligation based on guilt or greed. Yes, we have a big meal - turkey with dressing and some sort of pie for dessert - but we choose to share that meal with at least one person who otherwise would be alone on a day that many associate with being among family and friends.

But Jesus is the Reason for the season only because we (as believers) choose to make it so. There seems to me to be a certain amount of arrogance in how Christians have judged those who celebrate December 25 without Jesus at the centre of it. We have chosen to celebrate Jesus' birthday at this time, but others - because they are not Christian - have every right to celebrate it however they wish. 

So it makes no difference to me whether people say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever, to wish each other well during this season. I look at the well wishes behind such words and I say back to them, "Same to you!" instead of trying to make them feel guilty for using the "wrong" words. At this time of year, when the nights are longest and the endless winter stretches out before us in such bleakness, it is good to remember that there are certain things which transcend circumstance and tie us together as human beings. We believers need not be obnoxious about our faith; that only drives people away. We can be kind, generous, and accepting, and attract people to Jesus rather than promote our own agendas (and in so doing, repel people). We can hold precious in our hearts the Babe who left such opulent richness to lay wrapped in rags, helpless, in a feeding trough.

And we can be grateful that He did this, knowing He would be rejected and crucified, to give us purpose. Himself. He IS The Reason - not for the season ... but for Living.

You lost me

I was in the middle of responding to a co-worker's question about my personal life. It had been a while since we talked and she was eager to hear about how things were going, particularly for my brother. 

I was telling her how well he was doing compared to the first of the year, when he was going under the knife to remove a section of bowel due to colon cancer. I have talked about the phenomenon of miracle after miracle that has happened before in this blog, so I won't repeat it all here. But the most recent miracle bears repeating - after his heart attack on October 25 and the stent operation he had (while conscious) on October 30, not only has his energy and endurance increased, but his kidney function has improved. 

Creatinine is one of the body's waste products that the kidneys are supposed to process, and a normal count in the bloodstream is a maximum of 113 μmol per liter (a μmol is a weight measure that is 1/1000 the size of that molecule, thank you Doctor Google... haha). The higher the number is, the less able the kidneys are to do their job. Earlier this year, my brother's numbers were close to 600 of these per liter (showing his kidneys were functioning at about 15% of normal). Now, they are at 225, or functioning at around 50%. 

His surgeon can't explain it. 

Of course believers know immediately what happened: God did it.

But as I was telling this lady about the numbers and saying that we knew what happened but the doctors wouldn't believe it - she was so interested and engaged and wanted to know what it was. So I told her it was "somebody bigger than you or I" - referring to God - and that's when I got "the look."

Her smile disappeared. Her eyes glazed over and she rolled them a bit (even though she tried not to.) Her whole attitude changed from interested and engaged to merely polite. She moved her body a bit farther from me.

In that moment, I knew that I'd lost her: I'd lost her interest and I'd lost her respect. I was "one of THOSE." Every negative experience she'd ever had with super-zealot church people - and I am willing to bet there was a lifetime of them - was behind that look. I've seen it before, and quite frankly, I've felt as she did before. It's not a good feeling to feel on either side of the fence.

Now, I get that some people are going to react that way. I get that. Some might argue that it was just "persecution" - but I beg to differ because persecution is what believers are experiencing overseas in anti-christian regimes - people literally losing their heads over it. But this lady's reaction - that almost gut-sick response - got me to thinking about the years of hurt (likely from judgment, shame and guilt coming from so-called Christians) that went into how she lost interest so quickly, and that makes me so very angry. Jesus' message is about love and acceptance, forgiveness and hope - and the people who had interacted with her had most likely given her nothing but the opposite. That kind of bigotry, all done in the name of God, really scorches my tail-feathers.

Photo, "Little Boy Covering His Face"
courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I've often thought about how the way believers talk actually excludes and shuns people who might otherwise flock to us. All those hallelujahs and amens ... the little turns of phrase we learn in the organized church ... they all seem to be part of the secret-handshake kind of we're-in-you're-out mentality. And the judgment!!  One wonderful man told me his story of how, as a child, a church leader asked him how he was. He replied, "Good." The man immediately said, "Oh no you're not. 'There is none good, no not one.' " And he quoted the Scripture reference to back it up. I know that that verse is in the Bible, but how he used it was as a weapon, not anything else. In that moment, because of his judgment and condemnation, he lost that little boy for the gospel. It took that child years to recover from that kind of rejection, which he consistently got from everybody in the church (how sad!!), and it took him several decades to be able to start to accept God's love for him - and that was only because God Himself took the initiative. And that is only one person. How many thousands are like him? How many struggle with rejection every day of their lives because they've been hurt by someone who claimed to represent God?

How many people - when we stand before the Almighty One - will say to us, "You lost me"? How many could we have shown love to, but we were too high and mighty to stop our holiness marches long enough to care for them? How many times were we too busy proving we were right, and jumping on every single cuss word or behavior we didn't agree with? Is that really necessary? (God's a big boy, He doesn't need our protection, and I am pretty sure His Spirit does a far better job than we can of convincing people that He's real...) 

I'm talking to me, too - I've done it! Intending to show we are different, to stand out in the crowd, we end up doing nothing but pushing people away by telling them what they SHOULD be doing, and condemning them for NOT doing it. Wow... How tragic is that!

Nothing but the Bow

Rainbows. The symbolism of all colours being present in Light is one of the greatest things about them. The Father of Lights is a fitting name for the Creator and Source of such a lovely phenomenon...

The first rainbow recorded in the Bible appears after the Great Deluge - the Flood. God decided to share something that is always present with Him - the "bow" - (more about that later) with mankind, but He set it in the cloud. The bow symbolizes mercy; the cloud symbolizes judgment or justice. 

On Earth, the bow naturally cannot exist without the cloud (water vapour); we only see half of a rainbow (a semi-circle) at most, because our vision is limited by the horizon. 

But not so above. Although the bows we see cannot be seen from space because the clouds are in the way (did you catch the symbolism? when there is too much judgment, mercy cannot be seen), astronauts have documented seeing their reflection in the water - and on rare occasions, one of those who have, also said that he saw the whole circle reflected on the ocean from above - a remarkable experience. 

One other person said he saw one ... a whole circle ... long ago. The apostle John, in his vision on the island of Patmos (while in exile for his faith) saw a rainbow, a full circle - but there was one major difference from the rainbows of earth. There was no rain, and there was no cloud. There was only the Bow. It encircled the throne of God.

Nothing but the Bow. Only mercy. No judgment. NONE. Total acceptance, with no cloud obscuring, hiding, barring the way. 

What a contrast to the way most people think of God... as a harsh judge, jumping on every little failure, angry and foreboding, waiting to say, "Gotcha!" as he crushes us under his thumb. 

But that is not how God is. If that is your view of him, it is distorted by the cloud of judgment, by the limitations of our earthly system. I might even go far as to say that a lot of people create their god in their own image - and call him God. 

If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," Jesus said. 

Photo "Double Rainbow" by Evgeni Dinev
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

The myth of an avenging God is just that - a myth. Jesus hung out with the dregs of society: the hooker, the double-dealing bookie, the eunuchs (by the way, these were as close to trans people as folks dared express in that day), the poor and the lepers, the downcast and downtrodden. Even the rich and / or religious who sincerely sought the truth, He did not turn away. 

I don't know who this other god is that people fear (are afraid of) so much. He certainly bears no resemblance to Jesus. So my conclusion is that he must be a false god, a puny god.

My God loves. My God accepts. My God has a Bow surrounding Him with no cloud: mercy WITHOUT judgment. He is (and gives) Love without conditions, peace without distress, joy without reservations. Anyone who tries to say otherwise is selling their own, limited brand of god, limited by human understanding and logic. God created logic, and science, and intelligence, but He defies description, exceeds comprehension, and surpasses anything our minds can conceive. 

There is therefore no fear; there is no judgment; there is no condemnation; there is nothing but love, acceptance, and mercy. Nothing but the Bow. 

If you are struggling today with not feeling good enough, always feeling as though you have to measure up, let that go today; those feelings do not come from Him, but from your limited view of who He is. He has nothing but mercy for you. He has nothing but acceptance for you - just the way you are. He has nothing but love for you... whether you feel that or not. It is true!  Let Him remove your inability to see Him the way He is... You will never regret it!   

The "quid pro quo" fallacy

For those who may not be familiar with the term quid pro quo- it is an ancient Latin expression meaning that if I do something for you, I expect to get something (of approximately equal value) in return.  It is usually associated with business, but has been used in social situations and relationships (usually business relationships). 

And sadly, it has seeped like e-coli bacteria into the groundwater of Christian doctrine, causing spiritual diarrhea, dehydration, and death.  Let me explain.  

Spiritual quid pro quo is the idea that in order to get something from God, we have to give something to Him. In such a mind-set, faith is no longer an expression of love (as the scriptures say) but currency - spiritual cash - to be used to bribe God into doing what we want Him to do.  

Oo. That sounds harsh, doesn't it?  We don't really do this, do we?  But we do!!! Here is what Joel Osteen said on his FB page recently: "God never promised that life would be fair, but he did promise that if you will stay in faith, He will take what’s meant for your harm and use it to your advantage."  (emphasis mine).  What he said really jumped out at me. Really. And not in a good way. 

Now, I think that what he was talking about was Romans 8:28 - that God causes all things to work for good to those who LOVE Him (remember we love Him because He first loved us!) and who are the called [ones] according to His purpose.  Romans 8:29 goes on to say that the "good" that God works all things together for is that we are conformed (not that we conform ourselves) to the image of His Son.  There is nothing in that passage about "staying in faith" - whatever that is. OR anything about OUR advantage (in the sense that is implied in the Osteen quote). 

Or maybe he was referencing 1 Corinthians 10:13 - you know, God doesn't allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it.  OOps, well, there is nothing in that passage about "staying in faith" either - or anything about turning bad things to our "advantage". It just promises an escape hatch, a way out.  Because He loves us. And He wants us to succeed. Not so that we will be victorious (that's a fringe benefit) but so that we will know deep inside that He is interested in every single thing that happens to us. Because He is head over heels gaga about us, in the same way that a good daddy is gaga about his little baby, who, by the way, is unable to do anything for itself. (That's another blog post.)

Photo "Hand Holding Dollars" by jannoon028 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The underlying premise of that Joel Osteen quote - the way it sounds to me - is that if WE keep believing, God will rig the game, and hoist people or circumstances on their own petards and bring them low so that we end up on top. But only if we keep on believing.  The emphasis is on us and our effort, and encourages the "what's in it for ME?" attitude.  The onus (or responsibility for the outcome) is ALSO on US ... and frankly, that seems to go against the love of God, the initiative He took in looking for the first, best, and most inescapable way possible to prove to us that He loved us all along.  It doesn't fit.  The self-centred, quid pro quo way of thinking is more like a transaction than an interaction, more narcissistic than intimate. It's religion and not relationship.

Okay, just so you know, I'm not picking on Joel Osteen.  I'm just using one of the things he said recently, because it seems to reflect and represent a lot of the teaching and thinking in Christian circles ... teaching that has been around ever since I can remember, and not just in one small slice of one denomination.  It's in the whole church.  It's formula-based thinking: A plus B has to equal C.  Put another way, you pray (that's A) and you believe (that's B) and therefore, God is obliged to (HAS TO) deliver on His promise (that's C).  Strange ... that's not what I read in the examples left for us in scripture.

Job prayed for his kids every day. They still died - at a party I'm sure Job wouldn't have approved of.  Sure, he had more kids at the end of his story - but every parent instinctively knows that having another child can NEVER replace, or heal the pain of losing, the first.  It is there. Always.

Moses, Gideon, Samson, Jeremiah, even King David ... these people knew from experience that it doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have, or how long you pray or don't pray - God does whatever He wishes and chooses whomever He pleases ... because He is God. He is sovereign.

The three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace? Yes, they were delivered. But they didn't believe they WOULD be necessarily. They knew God COULD deliver them - but they were willing to be put to death.  They said to the king, "...even if [our God] does not [deliver us], we still will not bow."  That speaks to me more of passion for the God they loved rather than an "if we - then He" kind of thing.  Doesn't it?  

The same thing happened with Daniel and the lions - Daniel was willing to die rather than stop his relationship with God. God was that important to him. That he was delivered was a bonus.  He didn't expect or demand deliverance; he didn't go around the palace anointing everything with oil for protection before his prayer time.  He just prayed ... as usual.

And let's not forget that the most anguished, heart-felt "deliverance prayer" by the most righteous Person ever ... ended by saying, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

We can slip so easily into self-focused it-all-depends-on-how-hard-we-believe thinking, because it feeds the lie we have swallowed whole ever since the first Lie: that there is something that WE can do to better our lives, to cover our nakedness, to appease His anger (because after all, WE feel inadequate so He must see us as inadequate, right??) or to gain a reward (or keep ourselves from losing a reward - yikes!).  But the simple and amazing truth is that He has loved us the whole time, and continues to love us, and will never STOP loving us NO MATTER WHAT.  Until we begin to grasp how deep and unconditional that love is, all our efforts will have been for the wrong reasons, and we will have missed out on something very special.

The Bible is full of examples of God intervening into the timeline, and something about those interventions that strikes me almost more than anything else is that He never does the same thing the same way twice.  It follows, then, that we cannot expect Him to operate the same way He did last week or last month, or forty years ago.  It doesn't matter how long we pray, what words we say or don't say, what places we go or don't go, what format we use, how much we tithe, how many verses we read, how many Bible studies we attend, how many positions we hold in the church, or how many good deeds we do. There is nothing that WE can do to twist God's arm.  The brownie point system does not work.  In fact, it misses the whole point.

Let's think about how this fallacy translates into what church has become. We chase that elusive "presence" and tweak the song service ("worship time" - as if worship only gets penciled in for maximum 45 minutes once or twice a week) like it depends on US whether God shows up, as if He needs just the right atmosphere ... and as if it is up to us to create it.  Wow ... what arrogance. There is not something "anointed" (read: magical) about this song or that song, this speaker or that worship leader or those flags or that bottle of olive oil.  We can't manipulate the conditions that we think produce the results we want, or even the ones that "worked" the last time. We cannot manipulate God; He won't have it!  He will find a way to break out of the box we have put Him into.  Or (worse yet!) He will withdraw, because (after all) we think we have it all figured out, so why do we need Him?  Either way, He won't play our little self-constructed games designed to prove to each other (or to ourselves) who is His favourite. (Don't we know better than that?)  

Our spiritual disciplines and good deeds are not currency.  We can't treat them like bargaining chips (or bribes) to get what we want. If we do, we have it all backwards.  We have bought into the mammon myth - the I-scratch-your-back-and-you-scratch-mine lie.  This is relationship with God. This isn't the world system. God isn't some CEO to impress, He's the One Person in this whole universe who loves us just the way we are, no strings attached.

God is not about sticking gold stars or "good job!" stickers on our chore charts.  He invites us into His embrace - to clamber with glee onto His lap - and experience His love for ourselves: unfettered, unashamed, unafraid ... like children.  There are no agendas, no conditions.  He is about relationship; there is no need to feel obliged (or required) to add anything of our own to what He has already done to the uttermost.  To do so, in order to qualify for the benefits He has already freely given, would be falling from grace.  All that means (contrary to popular belief) is that we would be missing out on God's highest purpose for our life - intimacy with Him - and settling for what we can (try to) get out of Him.

Building mighty walls

She's ten years old.  She has been coming to kids' church since she was three or four. And she has never felt like she fit in. 

She's not overly shy, but she thinks deep thoughts and feels things deeply.  She's a loyal friend - to those who take the time to be friends with her.  But people don't.  Not her peers, and not the children's ministry leaders. You see, they think of her as a troublemaker, even though she's not a bully and not misbehaving. She just wants to understand ... and a lot of things about what they are teaching don't make sense to her.  How, if God is love, He could command people to kill entire towns filled with people and animals (as He did in the Old Testament).  How, if God is just and wants only our good, He could let people die of cancer.  

Her questions are tough, but they are valid. That the teachers don't have the answers (nobody does) is not her fault.  But the frustrated teachers make her feel like it's her fault, that she is somehow spiritually defective for not taking things on blind faith. Because they disapprove of her, she thinks that God disapproves of her too.

Her parents are poor.  They cannot afford to dress her in the latest fashions, and sometimes the dresses she wears are stained in places, or there is a run in her tights.  She hates that she has to conform to a dress code, but she does it to please her mom and dad.  She doesn't tell them how the other girls in her class snub her because her clothes are not designer, how they wear things from the high-end stores and show them off to each other and to the teachers, and she watches wistfully from the sidelines while the teachers play favourites.  And after a few times of coming home and telling her folks about an upcoming event or activity (for which the admission fees are beyond her parents' budget) she doesn't even bother telling them about those things anymore.  

She is not slim like the other kids. She's kind of overweight.  She has health problems that have made her unable to be an athlete, and while she can keep up with them in the games in the gym, she doesn't excel and is not super competitive.  She feels keenly the rejection of the other children as they pick everyone else for their teams except her.  And more and more, the teachers pick events and group activities that revolve around athletic ability: skiing, skating, rock-climbing, and hiking, that pander to their favourite (slim) students.

The leaders also emphasize Scripture memorization and give candy prizes for bringing a Bible, and more candy for bringing a friend. She soon wonders if this - this expectation of performance, and the underlying idea that God is all about following the rules and not questioning - is all there is.  If it is, she must be a horrible person. But she can't stop the questions ... those unanswerable questions that make a lot of Christians uncomfortable.  After a while, the frustration of the teachers (and of their favourite helpers) turns to open animosity toward her.  She starts getting singled out and punished for things that are not her fault. 

She puts up with it only until it is considered legal to stay home without supervision... 12 years old. And then she lets her parents know how she feels.  Her parents, wisely, do not force her to keep going to a place where she feels attacked every single time she sets foot inside the door. 

The church workers had turned her against the church, and against God.  She did eventually have a relationship with God, but in spite of them, not because of them. And she still has a deep and abiding resentment against the church. 

Yes, the above example is based on a true story which really happened in a church that preached the gospel, taught that God is love and emphasized the infilling of the Holy Spirit. This church welcomed people of other races, and had outreaches to immigrant communities. The leadership seemed to bend over backwards to be welcoming toward people from diverse communities. 

So what went wrong in the children's ministry? Let me break it down for you.  

Racism is wrong.  It is wrong, wrong, wrong. And it hurts not only the victimized, but also the racists.  But there are other things that are equally as damaging.  And unfortunately, they are rampant in the church.

When you think of someone else who comes from a family that has a lower income than yourself as "less than" yourself, that is CLASSISM.  It's just like racism, only the "difference" is dollars, not skin colour. 

When you treat someone who is not as slim as you are as "less than", that is FATISM.  It's discrimination against someone on the basis of body type, and it hurts just as much as racism does. 

When you single someone out and punish them for things that are not their fault, exclude them, nitpick, contradict, or dismiss what they say due to one or more differences between you and them, that is BULLYING.  It has no place in the church. NONE.

When you reward children based on their performance (be that scripture memorization, Bible-toting, "evangelism" through dragging a friend to church) just so they can get some goodies, you send the message that God is more about people toeing the line than He is about loving people just as they are for the sake of loving them (i.e. that behaving is what life is about and that people are so depraved that they have to be bribed to behave). You are perpetuating RELIGION and undermining RELATIONSHIP.  You are saying that God has no power to transform people's lives and that they must obey rules to be accepted by Him.

God is not interested in religious robots.  He is looking for real people - warts and all - and by not accepting people (and children ARE people!) as they are, you are actually (a) encouraging the formation of robots and (b) driving away the very people that could bring life into the church and make the message that "God is love" really relevant to those in their world.

Photo "Teenage Girls Gossipping" by Ambro at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Many (but not all) churches do not understand the dangers of these sorts of attitudes creeping in and destroying the sensitive spirits of those who are vulnerable, rejected, and searching for answers.  Many (but not all) children's ministries are carried out in the week-to-week reality by people who are undertrained, overworked, and sadly unsupervised. Children's ministries in mainstream churches have typically been treated as glorified babysitting services where one or two teachers have the responsibility of overseeing dozens of children ranging in age from (four or) six to twelve: an impossible and thankless task!  Plus, the unspoken purpose of many children's ministries is to get the kids out of their parents' hair while they do their [boring] adult worship/giving/sermon rituals in the sanctuary, and the only qualifications that the children's ministry volunteers have are (a) membership in the church and (b) a willingness to plunk their behinds in a chair for an hour once or twice a week. 

The fact is that those who work with children in a church setting are determining the future of that church.  If they display intolerant, insensitive, and bigoted attitudes, the children will get the idea that God is intolerant, insensitive and bigoted ... and some of them (most likely the ones who stay) will buy into that fallacy and get the idea that it is OKAY to be intolerant, insensitive and bigoted - and will pass this on to the NEXT generation.  

What am I saying? Simply this - it doesn't cost anything (except perhaps pride) to be kind and compassionate to those who are different from us in some way.  However, people need to be aware that these (and other) ugly attitudes do exist (and not just in the church) and that they need to be exposed for what they are.  If they are not, then be prepared for church after church to close their doors as more and more of the founding fathers and mothers pass away. 

We are - without meaning to, I believe - building mighty walls, as Russ Taff sings in "We Will Stand" (yes this is a link).  Can we not see that this is damaging to the cause of Christ? Can we not see that labels and liberty are incompatible?

The cycle must stop.  Those people who are drawn to (any kind of) ministry need to examine themselves and determine if they are prone to any of these (or other) attitudes.  Church leadership must invest resources into not just the technical (how-to) training of their workers, but also discipleship and sensitivity training.  Pastors and children's pastors need to just "drop in" unannounced to the kids' classes.  Children need to be given feedback tools (like a child's version of a suggestion box) to describe anything that made them feel unwanted or uncomfortable in class without being singled out. If we foster acceptance and discourage exclusion, maybe we have a chance of seeing our children embrace our faith ... instead of pushing them away from it.

Light and Easy

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” - Mt. 11: 28-30, Message (emphasis mine)

I've been doing a lot of thinking and meditating lately about the kind of Life Jesus intended to give us, a life of freedom, one delivered from the burdens of religious ritual and meaningless mantras, one of passion and purpose and peace. 

He used the picture of the yoke in the above passage (I just used the paraphrase for clarity's sake, and because I love the phrase "the unforced rhythms of grace." What a picture of freedom - but that is another post for another time!)  

The yoke is a time-honored traditional way to harness the strength of two powerful beasts (be they horses or oxen) to accomplish a given task. The yoke is essentially a cross-piece that is laid across the necks of two animals. The farmer would attach the middle of the yoke to a pole through a ring or a rope, and attach the other end of the pole to a plow or some other farming tool. He would either walk behind the plow or put his weight on it to drive it into the ground and make the plow dig deeper into the earth. All the animals had to do was walk together.

Drawing "Farmer And Horses Plowing Field Oval Etching"
courtesy of vectorolie at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I've seen this happen. When I was growing up, my uncle had two draft horses that he put together in a contraption very much like a yoke ... and he would come and "horse-hoe" our potatoes. This was a necessary task, because it loosened the dirt around the potatoes and allowed them more room to grow, and it also covered the maturing potatoes with more soil so that they didn't get sunburned. In addition, it was a hundred times faster than hoeing the rows by hand.

I used to love to watch the two mares do their work because well, I happen to love horses ... and this was as good an excuse as any to get out of the house and away from the detested task of washing the dishes (that's hilarious to my husband by the way... but I digress.)  It amazed me to see how they seemed to communicate with each other as they went about their work; they knew what had to be done and I could see them looking at one another, happy in each other's company. The work was secondary. They got to spend time together. When one would stumble, the other would slow down and steady the harness until the other one fell back into step with her.

Now, here are a few fun (if random) facts.

• "Beasts of burden" (and people, by the way) can pull way more than they can carry.
• Each yoke was adjusted (or even constructed) to fit the specific animals perfectly.
• The farmer would yoke animals of the same size together because they would pull better if they were on the same level. The burden became awkward and harder to pull if the animals weren't the same size and strength.
• The animals who worked together would hang out together in the pasture more often.
• If there was a less experienced animal, the farmer would harness or yoke it together with an older, more experienced one (again, of the same size) so that the younger would learn techniques of pulling and of turning from the older, thus decreasing the workload and getting the job done faster.

Okay, here's the thing. When Jesus talked about being "heavy laden" (as the KJV puts it) He was talking about a totally different contraption - something like a pack that a mule would carry on its back, held on with a girth much like a saddle has. People would load up the pack on the animal's back with burdens that were too heavy for humans to carry ... and sometimes the load became way too much for even the animal to carry. The SAME LOAD if pulled by two animals was NOTHING compared to one trying to carry it in its own strength. Consistently heavy-laden animals didn't last as long as teamed animals who pulled. The knees and backs of heavy-laden animals would give out and they would eventually have to be destroyed. 

The "weary and heavy-laden" that Jesus was talking about, then, were people who were burning out, trying to fulfill all the teensy tiny laws, all the "shoulds" and "oughtas" that were placed on them by the religious leaders. Do this, don't do that, don't touch that, don't eat that - and - oh my goodness don't go there and eat with that person! ... etc. 

Enter the Light and Easy yoke. Jesus came so that all those heavy burdens could be put behind us. He came to walk in fellowship with us and to make Himself just our size. He came to show us how it's done. (How what is done?  really LIVING, of course!) And not only that, He came to do that with us, not to be the one standing on the plow, so to speak, but the one in harness with us. We never have to go it alone; HE is there. 

Right beside us. Just our size. Helping, encouraging, waiting for us to get our footing.

Through the Grapevine

Today I thought I'd take a well-known passage of Scripture, a passage which has been misinterpreted and warped into a club to keep people in line, and debunk the fear-based myth surrounding it. I am using the NASB which most scholars agree is the closest readable translation of the original Greek. 

John 15 || 1I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. ³ You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. ⁷ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

The very first thing that must be clear is that there is a divine order in this analogy. We are branches. We have NO life in ourselves. He is the Vine; He has life in Himself and we have grown out of Him. He has begotten us (birthed us). We are (in this analogy) grape branches. If separated from the Vine, we do not become apple branches. Or weeds. We only become useless. Our life source is Him. We are part of Him.

Second, He says that the vinedresser (gardener, husbandman) is God the Father (remember this for later), and that "every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away." Hmmm. Every branch IN ME, He says, that doesn't bear fruit... so it IS possible to be IN HIM and not "bear fruit." (More about what that fruit is later.) And if that is the case, "He takes it away." God removes people who are born-again and who are not producing any fruit in their lives. The meaning is clear. He moves them to a place where they will abide in Him and bear fruit - or He takes them to Heaven. 

If our lives produce any of His fruit at all, He prunes us (the Greek word - and you can see this because it's used interchangeably - is one of "cleaning.") And He tells the eleven that "you are already cleaned (pruned) by the Word i have spoken to you." (vs 3) The pruning is hardly comfortable. God removes things from our lives that are hampering our growth in Him. He looks after us, and His desire is that we receive life from Him unhindered. Not so He can punish us for our sin (He has already redeemed us from that curse!) Not even so He can keep score of how much fruit we produce, but simply this: because He knows that this kind of life will bring joy to us (vs 11). 

That is abiding. That resting in His life, that utter and total dependence on Him ... that is life, that is living. That's why He said "Abide in Me, and I in you." It's a total intimacy, one that cannot escape the fact that He is the life source and we are His well-beloved offspring, continually dependent on Him. It isn't a conditional statement. It's a love-statement: a mutual resting, a mutual staying. We are one with Him: us in Him,  He in us. We have been forever changed because of having been born into His family through Him rescuing us. 

Here is where the misconceptions start. We read, "Abide in Me ... As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me." And we think - foolish humans stuck in religious thinking - that it is up to us to stay connected to Him. We are already connected to Him!! He has given birth to us! We are His!! What Jesus is warning us about is thinking that we have to "stay saved" in order to maintain that life-connection to Him. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Here's where the error creeps in: we think that once He saves us, we need to "keep ourselves in Him" so (not wanting to "fall away") we "do" things to ensure that we don't find ourselves in the fire: we pray, we read the Word, we go to church, we tell others about Him (whether that is a co-worker or someone in another land). I'm not saying that those things are wrong in themselves. I AM saying that if we are operating out of fear (a fear of being separated from Him) then we are trying to do these things in our own strength in order to stay in the position that He has bought and paid for us to be in!! Can we not see the futility of this? He has said, in concluding this thought, "...because without Me you can do nothing." (vs 5b) 

Photo "Ripening Grape Clusters On The Vine"
courtesy of satit_srihin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

We need Him to abide in Him and to produce fruit (vs 5). WE don't do it. HE does through us! Does the branch TRY to produce fruit? Does it TRY to stay in the Vine ... or does it just rest and draw life and strength from the Vine and the fruit just grows naturally, automatically?

Okay so what IS this fruit anyway? When I was a child, I was taught in Sunday School (and later in church) that the fruit was new Christians. "Producing baby believers" was the work I and every believer was called to do. (What about "No one comes to the Father except by Me"? (Jn 14:6) What about "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (Jn 6:44)?) I later came to understand that the fruit that He was talking about here in John 15 was the fruit of the Spirit. Jesus was providing a final teaching for His loved ones. In chapter 14, He tells them He's going away and not to be sad because He was going to come back. In chapter 15, He tells them that remaining connected to Him in the meantime, would help them to lead a fully joyous life (leading to the question, "HOW?") and in chapter 16, He tells them (and by association, us) how: by His Spirit. By HIS SPIRIT. NOT by our own efforts! ("Without Me, you can do nothing."vs 5b)


Think about this: it does absolutely no good to "go into all the world and preach the gospel" (Mk. 16:15) if the Holy Spirit of God does not lead us. It is actually counterproductive. It does HARM to the cause of Christ to speak of His love and His grace if we ourselves have not experienced that love and that grace so much and on such a continual basis that it can't help but overflow into every facet of our lives. If that is not there, nobody will listen to the message. This is precisely what is happening today, when people in our society listen to Christians talk and can't hear the good of what they are saying ... simply because of the rigid lifestyles of the Christians who are speaking the message. Our unloving and ungracious attitudes, our unhappiness, our intolerance, our joyless spirits, our commitment to duty before love, pervades everything we do when we are so busy trying to keep ourselves in the Vine. It's a religion based on fear and duty, not a relationship based on love and gratitude. If we fear excommunication, we are not operating in love - because there is no fear in love.

THIS is what Jesus warned about when He said, "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away ... and withers..." (vs 6) Thinking that we can produce fruit in our own strength is as ludicrous a ventriloquist's dummy (if it could think) thinking that it can move its mouth without the ventriloquist's hand inside, and insisting that it can talk and make people laugh without its owner. It can't be done. Abiding isn't straining and grunting and striving to keep God from casting us out. THAT'S NOT ABIDING. THAT IS SEPARATING OURSELVES FROM THE VINE, trying to do it on our own. We abide in the Vine when we realize that there is absolutely NOTHING we can do to keep ourselves there. We are totally dependent on Him. TOTALLY. Remember He said that GOD is the Vine-dresser - it is God who looks after our spiritual life; all we need do is rest in Him, receive life from Him. The fruit will take care of itself. It just will.

And this is how: The fruit of the Spirit (that fruit that we bear when we abide in Him) is love, first and foremost. The rest of the fruit (joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control) are the different facets or expressions of that love. Pure and simple. Nothing complicated about it.

If you think that isn't enough - that we have to get out there and fulfill the Great Commission - let me tell you that unless and until we abide in Him (i.e., let His life infuse us, empower us, love us with an inexhaustible Love), the fruit of the Spirit will not be showing in our lives. Therefore, all that will manifest to the very ones we are trying to reach is how rules-based, how full of fear we are. They will prefer their own lifestyle to a life lived from a place of fear and duty.  NOBODY will be attracted to that. NOBODY. Not only that, but we will approach mental and spiritual exhaustion, and crash and burn in disillusionment and bitterness. How many people I have heard say (referring to what passes for Christianity in our society), "I tried that, and it didn't work." When I questioned them, I found out that they were desperately trying to do-do-do and didn't understand or experience the grace and love that is the motivation and the strength for all the doing.

Once we depend on Him and draw our life-source from Him, those fruit will automatically appear in our lives. We won't have to work our tails off to keep from falling in the mud or falling off the Vine; we will be happy and free and energized, and people will WANT to know what's different when tumultuous things happen to us and we face them with faith and peace and yes, even joy (recognize the fruit of the Spirit?) in the midst of circumstances that would just make them shut down. 

I can still hear some objections. I can still hear you say, "But what about the burning? doesn't it say that we'll be cast into the fire and burned?" 

Okay, let's look at that. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and they gather them up and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." First, if we interpret "not abiding in Me" the way that I have mentioned above, that means He was talking about those who are trying to live the Christian life in their own strength, trying to follow all the rules so that God will be pleased with them. These are the ones who are [already] cast away, "fallen from grace". (Read the book of Galatians for more information on that, especially chapter 3:1.) But look. Even though they are cast away, "They are 'cast away as a branch'..." Those who are cast away don't stop being branches. NOT ONCE. And then look at who gathers the branches for burning. "THEY." The KJV says, "men." The implication here is that these are people who are not part of the Vine (otherwise they'd be branches.) The world will destroy you and rip you apart IF you are fear-based and rules-based. Your 'great' testimony, your brilliant words will fall to the ground and the ones you want to reach the most will not respond to you, starting with your children. You'll be treated like firewood ... useless twigs fit only for fueling their rejection of the Message. 

Then He makes the most amazing promise. This goes over and above what anyone could expect. "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." (v. 7) So, if we let ourselves be loved by Him, if we let ourselves experience the wonder of His grace, we will want to know what He has to say to us because we love Him in return (not because we are commanded to do it, but because He rescued us from certain death!) ... From such a grateful heart, can any request that is out of His will and contrary to His heart be possible? Of COURSE the request will be granted, because we would not ask for something that was selfish after He gave up all that He had and all that He was just to be near us! 

Can we get our hearts and minds around that kind of unconditional love? Can we?

Can we grasp the supreme fulness of His grace, the awesomeness of His care of us, and let Him flow in and through us unhindered by our own efforts, dependent on Him for everything? Can we begin to lay hold of that simple truth that He has done it all? that nothing we can do can make Him love and accept us more than He already has?

I often wonder what would happen, how our world (both inside of us and the world with which we come in contact) would be transformed, if we really could "get that."

Undiluted, Pure Grace

Whenever I get confused about what I have to do, what God's will is for me, or whether I'm barking up the wrong tree, I always end up in either Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 5, or Galatians. 

Today, I decided to take a different tack with my approach - instead of reading a few favorite verses, I decided to read the whole book of Galatians, and in a readable, relate-able paraphrase called "The Message." I find that this paraphrase demystifies Paul's writings for me and helps me get to his intent, his real message, stripping away all the convoluted fancy talk. 

I wanted to see just what the church's problem was at Galatia. What specifically was Paul trying to correct? I wanted to see the big picture and not get "lost in the tall grass" as one acquaintance put it once. And it was so clear as I just read through all six chapters that the thing he was trying to correct was that the Galatians believed the lie. The lie is that humans can do something to make God like them more. 

What they didn't GET was that God already approved of them, had already gone to the cross for them, rescued them, and made them righteous in His sight through the sacrifice He made for them, putting them right back into the covenant that God made with Abraham: you know, the one based on faith alone, five hundred years before Moses was even born. They were stuck on keeping the law as a way to add to what Jesus had already accomplished for them; it was an insult to His grace. It detracted from it, diluted it.

To dilute something means to lessen its power by adding something else into the mix. While dilution can be a helpful thing in cases of making something more palatable or less toxic, the sense in which I mean it is of something that would be detrimental by being watered down. For example, the orphanage in Dickens' book, Oliver Twist used to water down the porridge served so that it was no longer porridge (oatmeal) at all, but gruel, or oatmeal-flavored water. It left the boys in the orphanage constantly hungry, which gave rise to Oliver's famous quote, "Please sir, may I have some more?"  

Grace gets watered down with religion - and the result is gruel. Nasty, tasteless, unsatisfying gruel. 

But people don't know the difference if that is the only diet they've ever gotten. The only way is to give them a taste of what they've been missing.

Here is a taste of Pure Grace. Jesus has done it all for you; He has already fully accepted you; there is nothing else you need to do for Him to completely love you and approve of you. God did that IN JESUS AT THE CROSS from before the foundation of the world. Nothing you can do can add to it or take away from it; the Grace of God stands alone. 

Photo "Rushing River" courtesy of Maggie Smith at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Your faith is nothing more than saying "Yes" to His Grace, believing that you can step into that stream of living water already flowing beneath your feet. He works His life out in you. 
He is with you, and as near as the breath you breathe. Always. Not just at some ornate altar somewhere, He is with you at all times, loving you, bragging you up, doting on you. 

Listen to what a friend of mine had to say about this:

It seemed that the gospel I was raised with required my faith in order for my sins to be forgiven. That God would not or could not love me until I worked faith out. This seemed to make my faith a work by which I gained or won salvation. Now I know that my faith simply accepts what is already mine. While I was a sinner Christ died and rose again for me. God has never held my sin against me. Christ was crucified before the world began. I was reconciled to God from birth. It’s all mine (and yours) now, though I won’t experience it until I believe it. However, the accepting of forgiveness does not produce it. Faith simply says ”I see it, I believe it.” Seeing it, believing it, is a work of grace, and then I have to simply say “yes” to it.

This radical shift for me has now begun to cross over into what I have as a believer. I have longed for certain gifts to be mine. Asked, begged, pleaded with God, to allow them to be in my life. Thinking that until I act in some worthy fashion and exercise my faith that they would not be manifested. But they are all mine already, and have been from the very beginning of all things, and thus certainly from the beginning of my spiritual life.

“For in him all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form, and you have been filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” (Col 2:9,10)

“For every one of God’s promises are “Yes” in him; therefore also through him the “Amen” is spoken, to the glory we give to God.” (2 Cor 1:20)

Faith just says “I see it, I believe it.” Seeing that all his gifts are mine already is a work of grace, and then I have to simply say “yes” to it.

Demanding that anyone produce the work of faith before they can be forgiven is actually a sure way to keep them from it. If faith becomes a law, a thing we must do before God will love us, then we have fallen from Grace before we ever find it. If believing that the gifts are mine is a law, a thing I must do before they can be mine then I am already insulting the Spirit of Grace. I am already far from the reality as it is in Jesus.

It’s all ours now, all we have to do is see it, believe it, and say yes to it.
    - Rev. Stephen John Fenton, 2015-04-11.

I saw this work of Grace in the heart and life of my own dad. He was a chain-smoker, started smoking when he was five years old and had tried to quit SO many times, to no avail. He struggled with it all of his life. And for decades he had been judged and condemned by the religious elite of the community - which included his own wife many times - and sometimes he had tried to change, to clean up his life. He just. couldn't. do. it. He couldn't change himself, not one iota. He couldn't understand the Bible, didn't want to read it, didn't want anything to do with the people who'd judged him...the religious ones...or the petty, vindictive god they served.

When he was 58, he had a heart attack. And one day, after having developed a respect for the pastor who went to see him every day and showed that he cared about HIM, that pastor asked him for permission to ask him a personal question. With Dad's permission, the pastor said, "Are you trusting Jesus as your only way to a relationship with God?" And Dad thought about it and then he said, "Yes." And he meant it.

In that moment, something radical changed in him; he was never the same. And all he said was, "Yes." That's pure Grace. 

Yes, he struggled with his addiction. Yes, it eventually and ultimately killed him - first laying waste to his lungs, then his brain. But the person he was when he walked out of that hospital at fifty-eight years old was a different person than he was when he went in. He found himself automatically loving Jesus. He found himself automatically wanting to spend time with Him, reading what He had to say. He became more generous, more loving, more gentle, more humble. All without even trying. Jesus was doing the working out of Grace in his life, giving him the "want to" and the power to live each moment in gratitude and in returning the great love he had been given back to the One who gave it. And at the end of his life here, not even 10 years after that heart attack, there were so many people at his funeral that folks filled the foyer, and had to stand outside the church in the cold November air. 

Grace has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God.

That's how it works. That's how it always works - full-strength, undiluted, pure Grace. 

Thank God!!

Eustace's transformation

Eustace, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis) is transformed into a dragon through his own selfishness and greed while he is in the care of King Caspian, and brother and sister Edmund and Lucy Pevensey. 

After several adventures, during which he learns a lot about himself, he is wounded in the foreleg by a knight who doesn't know he's really a human. 

He flies away, blinded by pain, and lands on an island where there was a clear lake. There, on the shores of the lake, he meets Aslan - the lion who is the saviour of Narnia.

Here is his story in his own words:

Photo "Lion" courtesy of tiverylucky at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I dont know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bath.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bath.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

The the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I was smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me - (with his paws?) - Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. and then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

I love this account because it shows that self-effort and religious rituals do absolutely NOTHING to rescue us. But Jesus (who is Aslan in Narnia) does it all. ALL of it. 

Thank God.  Thank GOD.