In Everything

"Be anxious for nothing, but
in everything, by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving, make your requests

known to God." - Philippians 4

The above verse came to my mind today as I reviewed my Facebook news feed. So many people are so freaked out over this coronavirus "COVID-19" even though our little province has had only 27 cases, all travel-related, and all recovered with NO hospitalizations. Be that as it may, I am not one to deny the potential dangers of the virus, nor am I one to pooh-pooh medical directives to wear masks and keep washing my hands and avoid touching my face. 

What I am most concerned with, however, is the tendency of people to say that they trust in God and yet they continue to obsess about what others are doing to endanger their own health (by political decisions to allow snowbirds who have properties here into the province, or to allow more than 5 people at a time to get together, for example).

That's when I think of Philippians 4 - and meditate on what that means for me. I see a number of things that I can apply to this very situation.

First, don't worry.  Worry only robs you of the moment, of enjoying the present. It does nothing to change the situation. Worry is actually bad for folks because it raises hormone levels that cause people to gain weight and to be more depressed and anxious. Besides, the actions of others are out of my control; I can only control what I do, not what others do. So it is fruitless to worry.

Second, pray in everything. Not just about everything, but IN everything - in the midst of the problem, bring it to God. Bring your anxiety, bring the whole situation, and how you feel about it, to God.

Free image by geralt at Pixabay.com

Third, and perhaps most important, pray with asking AND thanksgiving. "Supplication" is just a fancy way to say asking or requesting. But this requesting is not the oh-please-please-please kind, the kind that has very little trust in the goodness of God. It isn't like someone making a petition to their boss or to their premier. Rather, it is the act of a child asking something from a loving father. It trusts in the Father's love, in His character, in His goodness. It's the kind that says, "I ask You for this and I trust You that You will do what is best, so I thank You for whatever You decide to do." It is the prayer that leaves the outcome to God's loving care, and lets go of the desire to influence how things turn out.  It is the prayer of faith, not in the outcome, but in God Himself.

No other kind of prayer will calm the spirit. I know, because I have seen the kind of prayer that doesn't thank God for His decision. I remember as a child seeing my mom praying on her knees, crying and worrying on her knees, for a loved one. And when she got up from her knees she would still worry and fret, and be torn up, about the situation or the person she just prayed for. It did her no good and it did that person no good either. I know that, because the person she was praying for was me. All her prayers did was make me feel shame. I saw no faith there. I only saw a pitiful person worrying on her knees. It disgusted me. It made me not want to have anything to do with a God who couldn't be trusted to look after her OR me. (Of course, later, I came to understand that this wasn't what God was like. But it wasn't my mom who taught me that.)

Prayer IN everything WITH thanksgiving liberates the person who prays. It removes the responsibility for the outcome from that person's shoulders and places it on God's, where it belongs in the first place. It is an act of trust, not of fear. It honours God. It does not insult His grace and goodness. And it results in peace, not more anxiety.

That's the kind of peace I want. That's the kind of God I serve. I am overwhelmed by His loving care for me and for all of those who reach out to Him in faith, trusting His goodness and His grace. So when I pray - which I doubt if I'm ever NOT praying as it's a conversation with God - I listen for His heart, let go of what I can't change myself, and trust Him to either change those other things or help me to accept what is. And He does, simple as that. He does.

It's so freeing.

A New Creation

"If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.
The old has passed; the new has come."- 2 Cor 5:17

"People I talk to keep pressuring me to go to church," he explained. "I'm not so sure I'm ready to go. My reputation around here is not good, and I just know there will be those people who will sit back and wonder who I think I am, coming in there and testifying..."

"Well, you'd get that anywhere you went. You know that."

"I know," he sighed. "But I just need to spend some time with Father God so that I can be strong enough to not care what other people think of me." 

I nodded. "You take all the time you need. The most important relationship right now (and for that matter, always) is your relationship with God. And church," I added, "might be one way to enhance that. However, only when you're ready."

He quirked an eyebrow. "But I thought we weren't to forsake the assembling - - - "

I smiled. "What do you think this is -- right here, right now? Huh? We've been communicating with each other, sharing the things of the Lord, talking about our struggles, and caring for one another. I don't know what anyone else might call it, but I'd call it church!!"

His eyes slowly widened, and a smile began to shine from his eyes like a sunrise. "Didn't our hearts burn within us, when He was with us along the road...?  Wasn't that the two disciples on the road to Emmaeus?"

Photo by David Alberto Carmona Coto from Pexels

"Sure was." I grinned. "Wherever two or more are gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst." 

His shoulders relaxed.

"You'll get to the place where it won't matter what people think. So just know that any pressure you feel comes from other people's expectations, not necessarily from God. Of course, they might mean well, but you also don't answer to them. I think you're pretty good at recognizing when you are being manipulated rather than when God is telling you something. When you're ready, you'll know that it's time to make that step to be with others. But until then ... here we are. And that's okay."

His eyes glistened. He got it.

I've had this same conversation with more than one person, but I've picked this one because it stood out for me. I've had to have chats like this one because so many people are "church-hurt" and they need a slow reintroduction to the people who say that they belong to Jesus but who take particular delight in pointing out areas of improvement (thus trying to do the Holy Spirit's work for Him, but don't get me going.) And by "improvement" I mean areas where the person's life doesn't look like theirs: from actions to appearance. Same words, same hair-cut, same causes, same version of the Bible, same, same, same.  

It doesn't matter. Our Father is a God of endless variety, and it would be pretty boring if all of us looked, smelled, and acted like the same human.

What matters most is that this person, no matter the past, no matter the number of times he or she has said things have changed, no matter your or my opinion of things, is a new creation in Christ. The old has passed; the new has come. Who are we to sit in judgment? Who are we to hold that person's past against them? Who are WE to determine how fast and in what areas he or she should grow? Do WE know the inner workings of their heart?  What God has started in that person, He will finish. Whether they agree with us or not on everything, it isn't our job to make them into perfect replicas of ourselves. 

It's God's work to grow them up in Him, in a way that will bring out their unique qualities. He is the gardener, the caretaker, the great shepherd. He knows best what will draw each person into an intimate and vibrant relationship with Him. He's been doing it for far longer and is much better at it than you or I could be. Let's set aside our preconceived notions of how spiritual growth looks, and trust God to nurture His own creation how and when He sees fit. 

Besides, maybe they can someday speak life into someone who can relate to the way they look or talk. For example, their appearance - whether they have tattoos, dreadlocks, piercings, or whatever - might put us off, but that doesn't mean God can't use them to reach people who would never be drawn to us. And isn't that the main reason why we're all still here in the first place?

Forget it.

There is an expression and a teaching in most Christian circles which, I believe, has caused a lot more harm than the good that it tries to do. It is also based on a misunderstanding of human nature and of the omnipotence and divinity of God. 

That saying is, "Forgive and forget."

I'm all for forgiving, when forgiveness isn't a substitute for the real thing. It isn't excusing the person because he was mad or she was having a rough time. It isn't saying it was nothing. It isn't saying that what the person did was okay. And it is definitely NOT forgetting.

I was in my forties before I learned what forgiveness was. When I was growing up, nobody apologized for anything ... and if someone did, the one receiving the apology was expected to pooh-pooh it and make the one apologizing feel better by saying it wasn't anything. Plus, in our family, apologies didn't say, "I hurt you. That was wrong. I'm sorry, and I'll try not to do that again," and leave it at that. No, the apology started with the I'm sorry part, skipped the hurting and the wrong part, and then included an explanation of why the person did whatever it was that hurt them. Or (which often happened) the person didn't say anything at all and just did something nice for the person they hurt.

Photo from Pexels at
https://www.pexels.com/photo/baby-child-close-up-crying-47090/

Only recently have I learned that neither of these is the way to apologize. This is a way to justify the original hurtful action and sometimes even make it the other person's fault. Or in not apologizing, the "good deed" is a thinly disguised bribe, which looking back, seems like the ultimate in avoidance. That realization was hard to accept. Very hard. 

Just as hard to accept for some is that when the Bible talks about forgetting sins, it's not talking about US forgetting them, but it's talking about GOD forgetting them when He forgives. This is not because He is forgetful but because He chooses not to remember them. Let me repeat this for emphasis: forgetting sins is something that ONLY GOD can do. Expecting humans to do it is unfair because it is beyond our capability to remove a memory once it's been made, especially a traumatic one. It might be possible with a mild infraction, I'll grant that. But trauma? Nope. Not happening, because trauma hard-wires itself into our brains; it is a survival instinct to remember in great detail something that will hurt us in the future. 

I have talked before in this blog about what forgiveness actually is: a process that starts with feeling and admitting the hurt, calling it wrong, and choosing not to make the person pay for what he or she did. And sometimes it needs to be repeated (especially in cases of trauma / long-term abuse). Often. Healing is possible. It is. But remembering serves the purpose of being able, once we are healed from the hurt, of being able to walk someone else through that process of healing.

That being said, never has human forgiveness been about forgetting. It is literally physically and emotionally impossible for us to forget being traumatized, unless we lose that part of our brain by accident or disease. And neither of those options is anything we would want... neither brain injury nor dementia is pleasant. "God understands our frame. He remembers that we are only dust."

We can be grateful that God is not like us, and that He chooses not to remember our sins for the sake of close relationship with us. In fact, our sins were ALL forgiven AND forgotten (past, present, and future) thousands of years ago, as all of eternity hinges on the sacrifice of Jesus, which in the spiritual realm sent tsunamis of forgiveness in every direction and in every possible timeline from the moment of the Rebellion in Heaven onward. Not convinced? How about "... chosen in Him before the foundation of the world...."? How about "It is finished!" 

But even though we as humans cannot forgive AND forget, we can be free of the nasty side-effects of holding a grudge... as hard as that is sometimes and as good as holding a grudge can feel (it feeds our pride and justifies our behavior toward that person or people who are LIKE that person). We can be free, I say. We can choose to begin to forgive. Let me explain what I mean.

Forgiveness is a choice, but it is also a process. We needn't beat ourselves up for not being able to let go of the hurt the first time we make that choice. It might take many times, depending on the depth of the hurt and how long it lasted. But forgiveness works best by going through the process I mentioned earlier: (1) not denying that you were hurt, (2) allowing yourself to feel that hurt, and exploring how it has affected you in the present day, (3) placing the blame on the person or people who hurt you and not on yourself, and (4) [and this could take some time], realizing that the person can never repay you what they took from you (for example, your innocence or your sense of safety), so it is time to not try to make them pay, time to stop wishing that they'd apologize or change.  THAT is forgiveness. It doesn't make what the person did all right (because it was wrong), but it does free you to move on with your life. 

And never mind that you can't forget. That's not your job anyway. It's God's.

Myth-ing out

Life is hard. It's so good to have wonderful friends and family who are there and who care. Sometimes, though, friends and family have no idea how to do that.

It's amazing to me how many of God's people miss out on opportunities to step alongside someone and help them through a rough patch, or a dark and lonely valley, just because of preconceived notions - or what I call myths - about basic things like life, death, God's will, and prayer. These myths, expressed in ways intended to comfort, actually do the opposite in many cases. 

Take, for example, the person who is terminally ill. Their family is dealing with the hard facts that they may not have much time left with their loved one. I have heard all kinds of things said to the families (and to the sick person) and quite frankly, many of them do more harm than good. 

Here's one example. One of the things I have heard people say is that "it's never too late; God may still reach in to heal, so keep on believing." While this is true, and it could happen, first of all, why would you push for a return to this earth when Heaven is so much better than here? And what gives human beings the right to dictate what God's will might be for that individual or family? Secondly, telling the family to keep on believing is kind of an insult. Think about it. If there were any more prayers to be prayed, if there was any more faith to be exercised, don't you think they've already tried praying and believing every single waking moment? Isn't this experience hard enough without the family living with not only grief, but guilt and shame you placed on them because they feel they somehow didn't do enough to keep their loved one with them?

Here's another myth - the assumption that the person has already died, it's just a matter of when they stop breathing. Kind of cruel, isn't it? but people couch it in religious terminology like "Praying for peace for you and yours at this difficult time." All it really means is that (a) the person is a goner, in the mind of the person saying this, and (b) the person giving condolences distances themselves emotionally and is spouting platitudes, which are polite, meaningless noises that they think people are supposed to say when someone is grieving. "Feel better," is what this amounts to, but the person almost always has no intention of being around before the grieving one feels better.

Photo "Sadness Woman In Friend's
Arms" by David Castillo Dominici
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

A third (and this one is completely false): "God must need another angel." People don't become angels; that would be a demotion. (Look it up. Angels long to have the relationship with God that we do by second birthright.) That's the first myth. The second myth is the implication that God TAKES someone away from us, which is the farthest from the truth. When a loved one passes away, God WELCOMES them Home. They immediately step into the next phase of Eternity - a richness of life and joy that we can only barely begin to comprehend. And He is WITH the people who are left behind, available for them to weep hot tears or sit in stony, silent, excruciating heart-pain, or anything in between, for as long as they need to. His patience, love, and kindness is measureless and strong.


I get why people say these things. They say them because human beings were never created for separation. People feel uncomfortable with the word goodbye, when they know that the goodbye is for what might be a very long time. That's as it should be, really. But my point is that those people who are going to be left behind need as much help and support as we can give them, in a real and tangible way. Are we really helping them by telling them these things? Or are we just helping ourselves feel better by convincing ourselves we've done our bit? Where will we really be when the harsh reality of life without their loved one hits them like a ton of bricks? Hiding safe behind our platitudes, or walking the valley with them - in person - so they can lean on us when they need to? 

I am talking to myself just as much as I am to anyone else. Even though I have known the loss of many dear ones, every time is at least as hard, and every time is different. I know that the terminal illness or loss of a loved one is messy, and it can be very uncomfortable to witness up close; believe me when I say that the person undergoing such an experience would love to be able to NOT witness it. But people sometimes need that other witness, that person who sits with them or hugs them without saying a word, whose presence is there, comforting without the need to say anything. Sometimes that means going for a piece of pie and an iced tea, sometimes it means inviting them over for an evening, sometimes it means letting them talk and letting them cry - and crying with them - and sometimes it even means sitting with them in the hospital ward rest area and missing your favorite sitcom.

It might be inconvenient. It might be uncomfortable. But to do any less would be missing - and mything - out.

The most important kind of healing

More and more in the news, it is unmistakable - terrorist activity in Paris, police violence in Ferguson and elsewhere, school shootings all over the place, RCMP officers being killed by someone who called 911 just to get them to come so they would be shot, a rapist whose crime was witnessed by two other people getting handed a slap on the wrist, and most recently, some gunman entering a bar in Orlando and shooting over a hundred people, at least fifty of which died - and the victims' only "crime" was that they were gay. 

Whenever something tragic (like these things and more) happens, social media and news coverage around the world express outpourings of concern, even outrage, and a lot of folks request prayer for the place where it happened, and for the families of those most affected. I lost count of the Pray for Paris posters I saw on Facebook after the Paris attacks.  This sort of reaction is what I have come to expect.  And yes, it is needed; people need to feel as though they are doing something significant to help people they have never met in response to such events.  And yes, it is perfectly fitting to pray for a community that is reeling from some atrocity. 

But let's not stop there. 

Let's also pray for an end to the attitudes and beliefs that spawn such heinous acts. Let's pray to become part of the solution by refusing to succumb to the bigotry that some people still hold in their hearts.  Let's resolve never to stand idly by and allow hate-talk to continue, or victim-blaming talk for that matter, or worse yet, participate in it. 

This is not about whether this or that lifestyle is good or bad, or whether this or that skin colour or gender or religion is better than the next one.  This is about how people like us perpetuate an atmosphere that gives license to violent people to think they will have support for doing the horrific things that they do.  Innocent bystanders are we - but are we?  As long as we ascribe right and wrong to who people are - regardless of gender, race, sexuality, religion or size - different from us, we give silent consent to the people who use violence against their own kind: humankind.  People are fragile - that which makes us human is tenuous at best. We can be self-righteous all we want, but it will not stop the reckless onslaught of hatred.  It might make us feel better - but it also makes the perpetrators feel more at ease about wreaking havoc in our world.

Jesus is not like that, folks.  Jesus accepted people who were different from Him - even healed them.  Take, for example, the man of whom Jesus said that He had not seen such great faith in Israel.  The man wanted Jesus to heal his young male love-slave, folks.  And Jesus did.  No judgment of lifestyle, no little "digs" to drive home His point.  Jesus' "point" was love. Pure and simple.  I'm just saying ... it is not up to US to judge anyone.  

Photo "Rows Of Butterfly Cocoons"
courtesy of xura at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

And judging people can lead to disastrous consequences.  Surely Jesus' own death proves this.  A bunch of well-meaning religious people got some self-righteous ideas about what Messiah should look like, and they decided that Jesus was wrong - and not only wrong, but subversive - and they did the unthinkable, and thought themselves to be doing the right thing.  There is no difference - the process is the same.  People can justify their own actions with whatever twisted ideal they might hold to - but the fact remains that violence in and of itself is rarely if ever justifiable.  

The healing needs to start on the inside.  And it needs to happen to those who are hurting so very much because of these disasters ... but it needs to happen as well in our own hearts.  Until we begin to comprehend the unconditional love of God not just to us but to ALL people, and can therefore have compassion without judgment, it is we who need to be healed. 

Now. And the sooner, the better.

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.

The dirty little secret

Shame.  There, the secret is out.

It's everywhere.  At first, I was going to talk about the church - because there is a whole heaping lot of shame in the church, from Sunday school on upward into the sanctuary - ashamed people shaming people to make their own shame not seem so shameful. (Sighhh...)  But, truth be told, the church doesn't have a monopoly on it.  A better term would be (I suppose) religion - inclusive of pretty much all religion worldwide.  

Or maybe it goes even deeper than that.  Maybe it's part of human nature.

Ouch.

Shame is always, ALWAYS evil.   It is pervasive: it slinks in like a venomous snake and yes, it can kill! (Check the suicide rates!)  It ruins everything it touches.  Moreover, it touches everything ... and it is the hardest poison to eradicate from our psyches because it runs so deep.

Listen to what Dr. Brené Brown says about shame:

I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. 

I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure. I think the fear of disconnection can make us dangerous.  

-- from http://brenebrown.com/2013/01/14/2013114shame-v-guilt-html/

Photo "Chain and Hand" courtesy of
worradmu at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Dr. Brown also said in one of her writings (sorry, Dr. Brown, I can't remember exactly which one! :(  ) that the difference between guilt and shame is the difference between "I DID something bad." and "I AM bad."  That's an important distinction to make!

Would it surprise you to know that according to the Bible, we are not created to feel shame?  Check out Genesis 2:25 (this was before the great temptation) "Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame." (NLT)  This was life the way God intended - shameless (that is no shame, not even a conception of shame) because of a loving relationship with the Creator.  

And yet the first thing that the first people did when they did the first thing wrong was jump past guilt ... to shame.  Genesis 3:7 - "At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.  So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." (NLT)  

Shame is a human construct.  Humans created shame - not by disobeying (as is the common teaching) but by believing that God - who had only ever loved them - would stop loving them as persons if they messed up.  

And we have been doing that ever since.  Not only that, but we have been doing it to each other ever since.  The moment we suddenly believed that love had conditions: ifs, shoulds, and musts ... was the moment we, both as a race and as individuals (including Christians) fell from grace.  Grace is the highest, the best, the ultimate position; the moment we add conditions to it, we have slipped back into eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (aka morality) and all the judgment of self and others that goes with that.  And that, friends, is shame.  We have convinced ourselves that we are (or someone else is) "unworthy of connection" (B. Brown, see quote above).  

Shame naturally makes us want to do two things: (a) cover our own perceived inadequacies to make ourselves feel better (thus making it easier to point the finger at someone else), and (b) hide from what we think will be certain punishment.  I often wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve had just admitted what they had done without trying to pass the buck.  I guess there's no knowing that for sure - but knowing God's love as I am starting to - things might have turned out differently for them.

We - like them - underestimate the love of God and turn it into a contract: we do this and He does that.  It's not like that at all.  He loves.  No matter what we do, how far we go, He loves us and is delighted in us.  He has already redeemed us, loved us without measure from before the foundation of the world, embraced us before we even knew He was there.  It's a fact, not dependent on our behaviour but dependent on His character, even more dependable than the sunrise.

Unconditional love kills shame.  Oh, that we could understand how deep this goes!  

In the words of a song I learned once, 

Chains be broken, lives be healed,
Eyes be opened, Christ is revealed.

            - - "You'll Come" - by Brooke Ligertwood (Hillsong)

Yes. Yes!  Chains ... be broken!

The bitter and sweet seasons

Christmas day is a day some people sing about, look forward to, dread, and just endure. Everyone seems to have feelings about it - either warm, nostalgic ones or cold, harsh ones.  I've felt both extremes and everything in between.  

Some people try to minimize the spiritual side of the holiday and are militant about de-christianizing it, making it politically correct. Others try to shove 'the reason for the season' down people's throats (news flash: everybody gets it. It's called CHRIST-mas - celebration of Christ. You don't have to prove it to everybody) to the point of plastering social media with messages designed to make people feel guilty if they don't click Like, type "Amen" and click Share.  

So that's enough of the soap-box.  

My thoughts the last couple of days have been on the bitter side of the season, how it is so hard to go through it without the literal life of the party being around to share Christmas with.  This is our third Christmas without our youngest; she passed away just about 2 months prior to Christmas 2013, and the waves of grief and the bitter taste of loneliness are sometimes unbearable.  Yet, strangely they can mingle with the sweetness of good friends with whom we can share festive seasons.  

I know that the best I can do to be healthy inside my own skin is to be real, to not fake joy, and to pour into someone else's life in a meaningful way.

I don't think that holiday seasons (be they Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter or whatever else) get any "easier" when there has been a loss.  The feelings I have learned to pack away to deal with everyday life come raging to the fore when special dates or times of year come to pass, and that is only natural... and right.  

I can't apologize for feeling what I feel. (Often, allowing myself permission to have those feelings is the difference between function and dysfunction.... repressing feelings is never good for the soul.) However, I can try to make someone else's day brighter.  And I know that feelings are usually transient. They happen ... and then they pass.  This is a good thing to know.

Hubby reading the Christmas story -
the presents can wait.

This year, we had thought that our plans to have someone else share our Christmas morning celebration were going to be cancelled, and we were dealing with the disappointment of that (knowing that our friend was with her family, where she needed to be). 

We were just sitting down to breakfast when I got a text.  "I'm back home now," it said. "Can I still come over?" What a blessing that was!  within a half hour she was in our living room, listening to the Christmas story and joining in our sharing around the tree.

Later, another friend joined us, and we shared a meal. And pie. 

We all talked well into the evening, and each of us savoured the sweet of the season: the connection we feel with people who know they are loved and who love in return.  And though we each had a real reason to feel that bitterness, we chose to pour in the sweet, and taste the best of the holiday with each other. 

In Search Of Life

It has been an incredibly stressful six months or more.  But finally, we have some peace within.  

Some people already know what I'm about to reveal. Some people - a smaller number, no doubt - even know why. 

My husband and I are leaving the church. There, it's out. 

No, it's nothing that any one particular person has said or done; in fact, if not for the hope we had from the wonderful hearts of a very few people who love deeply, we would have left long ago. No, we are not angry at anyone; disagreement is not anger. No, we will not reconsider; we have put much thought and prayer and soul-searching into this decision and it is made. There is nothing anyone can say or do to change it. No, we are not going anywhere else. The organized church is the same everywhere - we've tried for years to find anything that is like what the first century believers knew and we have found nothing. NOTHING.  And no, most certainly we are not abandoning our faith. 

We are not just leaving a particular assembly. We are leaving a religious system that says it is based on love, grace and good news and instead is based on judgment, rules, and death. While we are in that atmosphere, there is no way that we can pursue Life. 

This conclusion is based on personal experience going back as far as we both can remember, through various denominations, in various life stages, as children, teens, young adults, parents with children of our own, and all of it operating (or trying to operate) in ministry through the vast majority of it. Throughout our Christian lives, we and our loved ones have been subjected to the most insidious types of spiritual abuse possible (and sometimes blatant bullying) by people who are well-placed in various positions of power in boardrooms, Sunday school rooms, kids church programs, youth programs, church suppers, picnics, special services where we felt sucked dry and left to flap in the wind, and more. Yes, we could cite hundreds of scenarios where the expectations of other people have made us feel belittled, used, burnt out, taken advantage of, and taken for granted. And we would still put up with it ... if there was even the slightest spark of Life in it. 

But ... there isn't. HE isn't.

Yes, I know that He lives in us and that wherever we are [the implication is, together] He is. I know that. But when we get together in an organized, structured setting, it becomes more about controlling people's behaviour (making sure they don't "fall away", whatever that is),  being gatekeepers of morality, and perpetuating the upkeep of the building and the programs than it is about letting Jesus love us, and being filled with that love so much that it overflows into the lives of others just because we can't contain it all. As I've said, I have seen individuals whose lives are like that. But the church? 

No.

About a year ago, a friend of ours made a similar move to the one we are making. She felt that she had to leave her church to be able to hear God's voice, to find out who He really is - because all she was hearing from the organized church was condemnation, guilt, shame, manipulation, should-dos and must-dos. It was all based in fear. Fear of losing what God had so freely given by dropping the ball somehow. Fear that people would stop tithing / giving to the church. Fear that the big bad world out there would somehow corrupt the strict code of morality that the church has embraced for centuries.

She had to leave the church to find God. Interesting. (Here's a footnote by the way: she DID find Him ... and she is deliriously happy!!)

Photo "Portrait Of Pointing Male" by
imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I will ask a question here - haven't there been many times when you've left church more drained than when you went there? More frustrated, more angry, more drained of hope, wondering if this is all there is?  I had times like that once in a while, years ago when I was involved in a community of believers that supplemented what happened at church... and even that group got bogged down in "organizing the organism" (also known as vivisection: now there's a horror story...) 

Since that time, that horrible experience of futility and burnout, that feeling of being beaten up, has happened more and more often until the point where it is so rare that even when the slightest glimmer of the presence of God shows up in a church service - He is doused with ice water after someone decides that we've had "enough worship" and wants to get to the "real" reason for church - the preaching. (WHAAAT??? Where is THAT written???) The preacher stands up (and here I must say that not EVERY preacher is like this) and starts to yell at the people for "not doing enough." He (or she) tries to scare people into toeing the line. Or shame them into getting out there and spreading the good news. (Really? is it good news to tell people that God can't stand to look at them, but He loves them so He killed Jesus for them, and then expects them to toe the line and behave themselves the rest of their lives or they'll end up going to the bad place anyway??)  It's all DO, DO, DO, with no encouragement to BE, BE, BE. It's like folks don't even know HOW to just BE. They think that unless they are out there, full bore, chugging for the Lord, He's not going to be pleased with them. What bondage.

He DIED for them to prove how much He loves - has always loved - the human race. Oh my goodness, do we think that He will stop being crazy about us just because we didn't read three chapters in the Bible today? or didn't sprinkle oil on the living room furniture to chase the demons away? 

Come on. Is our god really that small and petty?

God is LOVE. God is so much LOVE that He went to the ultimate extreme - becoming one of us - to prove that love. Jesus didn't die to make God stop being mad at us. Jesus died because God loved us so much and we were still drowning in our blindness thinking that He needed to be appeased. So He came to prove His love - and WE killed Him - and HE forgave us while we were doing it!! No condemnation, NONE. Just total acceptance and love. He came and died to remove our blindness if we would ask Him to, our blindness to His love, His light, His LIFE. And then He rose from the dead to show us that we would live forever as well.  In that act of pure, eternal, inexhaustible love, He KILLED the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of good and bad, right and wrong. And He opened the door to the tree of Life.

THAT is the Good News. THAT is the gospel. Not this whole system that is based on the same tree that Adam and Eve ate from in the Garden: the tree of "I'm better than you because I do this and don't do that."  That's the morality tree. It's what put Jesus to death!! He came to show us Love and Light and Life - and the religious system of dos and don'ts, shoulds and should nots, musts and must nots, felt threatened by Him... These religious rulers manipulated the political rulers of the day, and turned His message of Love into a capital crime, when Jesus Himself did not say anything against Rome, or against slavery, or against any of the societal ills of His day.  His only scathing rebukes had been against religion - the system - that rules-based, fear-based, politico-religious system that condoned oppressing the poor, and created a spiritual top-down caste society of haves and have-nots, of those who were "in" and those who were "out." 

The kingdom (kingship) of God is not like that. He turned the top-down system upside down and showed us that WE are the pearl of great price that He gave everything to have, that WE are the friends He would lay His life down for, before we even knew what it meant for Him to do that. He placed Himself beneath us, serving us... to show us how very much He loved us. ALL of us, every single soul down through history ... even the ones that have not been conceived yet. Not just the chosen few.

The religious system grinds people to oily dust and uses that dust to oil its cogs to grind more people up. It is an atmosphere that is anti-God, anti-Jesus, anti-Spirit. It is exclusive, not inclusive. It shames and does not accept. It is Ichabod - the glory has departed. We are not willing to be part of that system anymore. To us, it is (always has been, and sadly, probably always will be) death, not Life.  

Photo "Sunrise At First Sight"
courtesy of Keattikorn at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

We are searching for Life. We know that light-giving Life is in Him (see John 1) and we have only seen darkness and doubt and despair in the organized church. We are not saying that we will never darken a church door again ... but we are saying that such an oppressive atmosphere - for us - does not lend itself to finding Life or to falling in love with Jesus. 

And we understand - and fully accept and love - those who feel that the organization is the place they need to stay in order to have a feeling of community and purpose. We understand that there are people  -  many people  -  who need that structure, who need that place to call home in order to feel safe.  With rare and extremely notable (but temporary) exceptions, we have not found that feeling for ourselves; in general, we have found ourselves excluded, abused, judged, and at best, tolerated. 

So we are going on our quest - and it must happen outside that atmosphere. There have been definite glimmers - outside the organized church system - where we have experienced the organism of the Church (notice I capitalized it), been uplifted and fed, felt like participants in the good things that God is doing in people's lives. These have led us to believe that finding Life is possible, that God will prepare an accepting and loving community for us, and that it will be so very important for us to refrain from jeopardizing that by taking out the scalpel to dissect it and organize it. That would only kill it. There is no way we would want that.

I don't expect very many people to understand ... or to agree ... but I only wanted for the people who know us best to hear the real reasons from us, rather than speculating or gossiping or judging ... and to understand that it is necessary for us to guard our hearts, which for us (right now) means that we practice self-care by removing ourselves from that which crushes us. 

This is a scary thing we are doing. We are not sure what to expect. We are not sure if we'll find what we're looking for. We are launching out into the unknown. All we know is that if we keep doing what we've always done, we'll keep getting what we've always gotten.  And we are tired of living like that.  If there is not more, then "the abundant Life" Jesus promised is a sham. But if - as we suspect - there IS something more, we are on the lookout for it. We are in search of Life.  And if we find Life - there will be no question that those who know and love us will be the first to know because we won't be able to contain ourselves.

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 .

Fabricated fervor

I tend to be a bit of an iconoclast. An iconoclast is someone who challenges the idols of the past and destroys them if possible. And that's a dangerous thing to be - for the iconoclast (LOL). It usually means that someone like me comes under a fair bit of attack by the proponents of the status quo. Those who are attached to their household (or sanctuary) idols feel threatened by me saying, "But WHY do we do it that way? This makes no sense! This is not right!!" and so forth. 

And so, here I go again with the sledgehammer.

Over the past several months to few years, I've been doing a LOT of thinking about how the western church "does church." And by "the church" I am talking about the people, the people groups that gather to (apparently) honour God with their worship and their love and service to each other and (hopefully) to the world. And by "does church," I am speaking about the rituals and sacred cows that we have become attached to when wearing our church-attender mask.

I've looked carefully at the early church as described in the New Testament ... and nowhere do I see that they met once a week and sang five songs, ended the singing 40 minutes later, took an offering and had a sermon with a final song or two (or five) to finish up. They met from house to house, but nowhere do I see where they had to sign up to do so. Nor do I see any kind of reference to programs or topics or themes or leaders or study books. Rather, I see people who loved being together, who went from house to house on a regular basis, possibly as much as daily (!) as the Spirit led them. And they shared and talked about Jesus, talked to Him, gained spiritual strength from being together in the presence of God. Hmmm.

That's not what I see today. It breaks my heart.

Everything we do as believers in the western church is regimented, even in denominations that have prided themselves for DECADES on being "spontaneous" and "led by the Spirit." There's a structure, a set of tasks to accomplish, and in a certain order, each taking a predetermined amount of time, without all of which (it is believed) church just doesn't happen.

It's funny .... I kind of believe that church (first of all) is whenever two or more gather together in Jesus' name. It isn't a building, it doesn't have a human-organized structure as such, and it doesn't need money to operate. (Horrors!!) Church can happen (believe it or not!) even at a bar, if it has to (and it WILL if there is no other place for God to manifest His presence). Or ... at a coffee shop. Or in a kitchen when two friends share while doing dishes. Or on a golf course. Or in someone's basement when folks get together and "jam" with a couple of guitar and/or a keyboard. Or listening to and watching some Youtube videos of worship music. Jesus said that the rocks and trees would cry out His praise if the human voices were silenced. Is it such a stretch to think that He might show up in a place that is not authorized?

The number one requirement for such a gathering is spontaneity. If that doesn't exist, the "group" is just as cold and dead as the inside of a crypt. It serves no Kingdom purpose. None at all. It's just a bunch of people congratulating themselves for "not forsaking the assembling of [themselves] together" (Heb 10:25). Can I confess that I absolutely hate that verse? Or rather, I hate what it's been used to justify; I hate that people take that verse and club people over the head for not going to church regularly or for not signing up for a small group. Or for whatever other times or reasons the church (or hand-picked leaders') doors are open.

And let me go out on a limb here and say something else that might be considered radical, even (I dunno) iconoclastic! It's simply this. Spontaneity cannot be legislated. It's like expecting positive and immediate results when a university professor stands in front of his classroom of students at 9:17 a.m., and makes an announcement to the students, "You will now have fun. Go ahead. It's fun time." 

Seriously?

Photo "Chain And Hand" by worradmu at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

It doesn't happen that way. Doubly so when we're talking about something that God has made very clear can't happen without HIM!! Humans can't create the Spirit's presence in a test tube. We can't fabricate fervor. We can't regiment passion. We can't organize an organism. 

If we do, they all die.

If we shackle what was intended to be spontaneous, there might be a little knowledge transferred and we might think we're "accomplishing something" or "learning a lot" - or even "developing relationships" ... but we will have missed the whole point. Church, real church, isn't about learning stuff or feeling accomplished or patting ourselves on the back. It's about connecting with God and with each other on a spiritual level, not on a superficial level that touches only our minds. 

I'm not saying, "Don't go to church" or anything else like that. I'm saying that it might be time to RE-THINK what we have believed is so important when we gather together. It might be time (here's a radical thought!) to allow small groups to develop on their own rather than control the whole process with leaders and training seminars and sign-up sheets and hard-core marketing techniques. 

Those things turn me off in the worst way; I run in the opposite direction when I hear those kind of heavy-handed should-fests. I don't know about you, but the best way to keep me away from something is to tell me that I HAVE to do it or to judge me for not doing it. It's by telling me that I am less of a Christian, that I'm not doing what God wants me to do if I don't subscribe to the flavour of the month, whatever that is. Sorry. It's just not going to work with me. I figure that God put a brain in my head for a reason, and He put His spirit within my heart so that I could learn to listen to His voice and do what He tells me WHEN He tells me to do it. And I don't need someone else to do that for me. 

And yes, if I could find a gathering that is truly organic, I would probably want very much to be part of it. When I find it ... that will be something to write home about.

Type A Torture

First-year business students study the difference between the Type A and Type B kinds of managers. Type B managers include their employees in decision-making, encourage growth and creativity, and develop relationships with their employees. They do this, not to have something to hold over their employees or even to make them more productive, but to learn what things are important to them, to learn what tools they need to do their jobs and to feel safe while doing them. Employees will just about walk through fire for a Type B manager.  They'll go above and beyond the call of duty because they know that their manager cares about them and will support them no matter what.

Type A managers, on the other hand, are more goal-oriented. They push their employees for results and they're frequently saying that whatever the person is producing is not enough, that they need to do more, produce more, go faster, work better. They're all about following the rules and cracking the whip, and more often than not, throwing their employees under the bus if they mess up. That sort of approach may get results, (fear works) but employees are not likely to go the extra mile for a Type A manager and will only do the bare minimum. 

Once in a while, a Type A manager will say that he or she is "for" the employee, but it's a means to an end. They say "thank you" because those words are proven to give the message to employees that they are appreciated and the studies all say that people who feel appreciated are more likely to do things for you. They will even say that they "care" - but it's all for the greater purpose of increasing the efficiency of the unit, or the division, or the company. 

There are Type A managers in just about every organization and the church is no exception. I can't count the number of times that that horrible word "should" has been used like a club on people's heads to batter people with guilt and shame. And it's incredibly easy to do. SO incredibly easy. All one has to do is hold up some sort of standard of perfection, and then get insecure people who don't know their own worth to react, jump when one says jump, "repent" and vow to do better. I've seen it over and over and over again. The sad part is, the message people get is that they have to produce that desired end result and THEN God will come through. Or accept them. Or let them get into Heaven.

It's sickening. 

God knew we could not keep the law or be holy or be perfect; that's why Jesus came!! Adding in the requirement to keep the law after knowing the benefits of Grace is a little doctrine the apostle Paul fought all his life - it's called Judaizing (not to be confused with Judaism). And it is right out of the Pit of hell. The entire book of Galatians is written to counter this most dangerous of religious beliefs. Paul got into the biggest "Christian argument" of his life with someone who was heading down that path - the apostle Peter! "I withstood him to his face," Paul writes of that experience. 

I'm not saying by all of this that we shouldn't be living holy lives or that we shouldn't be spreading the gospel. Far from it!! However, let's be clear about how this happens.

WE don't do it. HE does. 

Let's look at some basic, wonderful truth and use it to counter the guilt-and-shame trips we've been taken on for years. 

Photo "Jesus Christ Over Rio De Janeiro" by
xura at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, He regenerates every person who believes (puts their whole weight) on Him. In other words, He recreates us into brand new creations. The old has [already] passed away; the new has [already] come! (2 Cor 5:17) Every sin we have ever committed or ever will commit is ALREADY forgiven!! (John 5:24, Colossians 1:22, Hebrews 10:12-14). 

This means (stay with me) that once we are Christians, God sees us just the same way, with the same degree of righteousness, as He sees Jesus. He has made Jesus to be sin for us, He who knew no sin, so that we could be made the righteousness of God IN HIM. (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

We are holy automatically because He is (the real meaning of 1 Peter 1:16 is "You will be holy because I am holy...") - there is no need to TRY to be holy (we will FAIL if we TRY. Human effort will ALWAYS fail!) This is a walk of FAITH, not a walk of EFFORT. The more we realize what He has already provided for us (and Love tops the list by far!), the more we are aware of just how much was accomplished for us at the Cross, just how free we really are because of His love, the more grateful to Him we will become and the more naturally His character will shine through us as we walk in that glorious truth!

Can't we see that we've gotten it backwards and upside-down this entire time? Asking God for what was already ours to begin with, begging God to forgive us for things that have already been forgiven to the max long ago, even striving (in our own strength, no less) to do things that He has already provided the power to do through us just through knowing Him more deeply and becoming more aware of His love for us? How much bondage the church has suffered! how much "Type A torture" we have been through needlessly! 

You know what? Given the choice between life or death, I think most of us would choose life. But I'll tell you something that dawned on me a few years back: it takes half a second to die for your faith. A bullet through the brain or the heart and death is instantaneous. A scimitar (curved sword) in the hands of a skilled swordsman can behead a person in under a second. No, it's not "hard" to die for your faith. It might not be a pleasant prospect (the act of dying that is) but death only takes a moment.

But this is the challenge: it takes a lifetime of moment-by-moment realization of His love for us to live out our faith - not in shame or guilt for how we're not doing it right, or fervently enough, or loud enough, or whatever the Type A folks say we're not doing right. The Christian life was meant to be joyous and free - Jesus said that He'd come to give us life, and not just life, but life more abundantly. (John 10:10) Living in the constant knowledge that I am accepted in Him, that He loves me unconditionally, that all of my sin and baggage and sickness is demolished in the Cross - that is truly living. Truly living is nothing more than living Him.

This is why Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) That's all the Christian life is. It's Jesus. It's Him constantly loving us, constantly empowering us, constantly directing our paths. It's Him, always and ever ONLY Him. Because He is all we need. 

He. Is. All. We. Need. And He loves us.
Joy trumps torture.